In many of the RFPs and proposals submitted by agencies to these clients, the focus is still primarily on items such as impressions, clicks or “engagement” metrics.
If sales are the key metric that CEO/CMOs care about, the campaign focus should be on solid conversions where a direct action is taken on a webpage such as a user making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter.
With a focus on influencing the “right” audience, building brand awareness or being “top of mind” in the eyes of the consumer, many agencies skirt around providing clients with more concrete quantitative-driven results. They peddle the belief that a “deeply affected” and ‘influenced’ audience will be more likely to make a purchase later by simply getting the brand in front of them.
The honest answer is that achieving true conversion metrics is difficult. It is much harder to achieve conversion goals, and much harder to explain.