Stop optimizing yourself into irrelevance

This newsletter comes from the hosts of The Marketing Architects, a research-first show answering your biggest marketing questions. Find us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts!

Marketing has become obsessed with efficiency over the past decade. ROI dashboards. Cost per lead optimization. Tighter targeting. But new research from Les Binet and Will Davis reveals this focus has come at a massive cost to long-term effectiveness. 

—Elena  

Budget is 8x more important than ROI in marketing effectiveness.      

Analysis of the IPA data bank shows budget explains 89% of profit variation in award-winning campaigns. ROI explains only 11%. Yet 65% of senior marketing leaders believe ROI is the biggest contributor to success.  

The efficiency trap.                         

Marketing has optimized itself into a death spiral. Here's what the research reveals: 

1. Efficiency doesn't equal effectiveness. ROI has climbed since COVID, but profits are down. Brands chase higher returns with tighter budgets and smaller audiences. This has created a culture full of beautiful dashboards and shrinking market share. 
   
   
2. Scale drives profit. Profit from advertising equals ROI times spend. ROI tends to cluster within a band across brands. Budget ranges wildly. Budget explains the majority of variation because reach drives growth.  
   
   
3. Most brands dramatically underinvest in scale. Campaigns require 30 to 60 million exposures minimum for statistically significant sales lift. Real share growth demands 200 million to 1 billion exposures.  
   
   
4. Budget setting is broken. Most companies use crude methods for the single most important marketing decision. Last year's spend plus inflation. Arbitrary percentage of revenue. Almost no one models budget against growth goals. 
   
   
5. Go big or go home. CMOs don't maximize reach, with most brands micro-targeting their way to irrelevance. Escaping this trap requires investing at the level your growth ambitions require. Prioritize channels that deliver mass reach at smart prices. Run fewer, bigger, better creative ideas long enough to actually work. 

Listen in on our discussion.

"Go Big or Go Home"       

Les Binet and Will Davis presented this groundbreaking research at the 2025 IPA Effectiveness Conference. Their analysis challenges a decade of efficiency-focused marketing and offers a roadmap for brands ready to prioritize growth over spreadsheets. 

Read the article.

Scale matters most.           

“The most important decision in marketing is how much to spend, not where to spend it." 

— Les Binet, Author and Marketing Effectiveness Expert