Yesterday, I was asked for my thoughts on measuring the effectiveness of digital marketing channels at the planning and campaign stages. Now, measurement isn't my area of expertise but I know some stuff all the same. Even so, the question still stumped me a little. After a while, I realised that it was because I felt that it drew an awkward distinction between the planning  and execution stages of a project that I don't really feel exists any more. The question is surely more about effective measurement than measuring effectiveness. Here's why.

As a result of the emergence of the modern, conversational web, we are entering an age of iterative planning, where insights inform marketing decisions on a constant basis. This means that distinctions that we have traditionally drawn between planning and execution stages are being erased, with measurement becoming the input not the end output. The volume of user data available to us as a result of a person’s search activity and social media interaction is what has driven this change.

The methods and tools we use are the same at both the planning and campaign stages. Consider the amount of Twitter monitoring and trending tools available to us. Likewise, the emergence of  social media monitoring tools like socialmention, which lets us search for brands across a range of platforms and ‘take away’ the data for charting and analysis.

 This is how the modern digital planner should be operating – in near-real time, in an agile manner, constantly learning and adapting activity as conversations and spaces develop. Of course, doing this is itself a challenge; it needs constant resource and dedication. It requires an organisation (and its agency) to be incredibly nimble and largely free of long-winded sign-off processes. It needs a digital presence based on a flexible, scalable CMS. This is all tricky stuff to change. But change is good and good change means progress.