A REVIEW ON MARKETING ACTIVITIES EFFECTIVENESS EVALUATION METRICS

. Marketing effectiveness evaluation is crucial for creating a marketing strategy that delivers a competitive advantage; however, it is a challenging process for organisations. A comprehensive literature review on various metrics used to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing activities is presented in this study. The research discusses the importance of evaluating marketing effectiveness in the current business environment. Different metrics used to evaluate marketing activities’ effectiveness, such as return on marketing investment, customer satisfaction, market share analysis and other significant metrics are explored. By applying the alignment of each metric to specific marketing activities, the classification of the compelling marketing metrics is presented. The discussion on the selection of relevant evaluation techniques is based on relation to business goals and objectives, shaping its marketing strategies and impact on budget al.ocation. Theoretical investigations in the research field propose that emphasising the significance of regularly evaluating the success of marketing efforts, employing appropriate effectiveness evaluation metrics, helps to make informed decisions and enhance future marketing activities.


Introduction
The current business environment is characterised by rapid changes in technology, customer preferences, and market competition (Li & Meng, 2022).In such a dynamic environment, organisations need constantly evaluate the effectiveness of marketing activities to stay competitive and meet the changing needs of customers (Chun et al., 2020).Marketing activities are essential for any organization to create brand awareness, generate revenue, and maintain customer loyalty (Camilleri, 2017;Porto et al., 2017;Fetais et al., 2022).However, evaluating the effectiveness of marketing activities is challenging for marketers because of its complexity and many influencing factors involved (Gao et al., 2022).
The evaluation of marketing effectiveness provides organisations with several benefits that are crucial for success in the current business environment (Jamil et al., 2022).Furthermore, it directly influences the decisionmaking process of future orientation to marketing activities selection (Melović et al., 2021).The pressure to deliver effective results from marketing activities grew up the interest in marketing effectiveness evaluation metrics (Hacioglu & Gök, 2013).Those metrics rang from more general, such as return on marketing investment to more activity-specific, such as engagement rates and social media reach (Camilleri, 2017).
Accordingly, to Porto et al. (2017), the evaluation of marketing effectiveness helps organisations to identify the most effective marketing activities for achieving marketing objectives.By measuring impact, using such metrics as sales, market share, customer loyalty, organisations can improve and adjust their marketing mix accordingly (Fetais et al., 2022).This allows organisations to optimise marketing activities and allocate resources more effectively (Hagen et al., 2022).Adding the insights from Khomenko et al. (2021), as the current business environment is characterised by intense competition, and organisations need to be constantly innovative and differentiate themselves from competitors to stay relevant.This helps to identify new opportunities for innovation and differentiate from competitors (Korneyev et al., 2022).Long-term success is impacted by customer satisfaction and loyalty, and evaluation of those factors helps organisations adapt to change and succeed over long periods of time (Oberg, 2020).
However, the existing literature lacks a comprehensive classification of evaluation metrics for specific marketing activities.This study aims to address this gap by reviewing the literature on marketing effectiveness evaluation and aligning the relevant metrics to specific marketing activities.For this purpose, for various marketing activities, such as digital marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, video marketing and others, a set of evaluation metrics based on the suitability for each activity is proposed.Overall, this study provides a valuable contribution to the academic literature in the field of marketing effectiveness evaluation metrics, by presenting a comprehensive review of marketing metrics for effectiveness evaluation of marketing activities.This classification can assist marketers in selecting appropriate metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of the marketing initiatives.
The research aims to provide the classification framework for selecting the appropriate metrics to evaluate marketing activities' effectiveness.
The article is organised as follows: firstly, the theoretical discussion on the importance of evaluating marketing effectiveness is performed; secondly, the research methodology is designed, and the most significant articles are selected for analysis of marketing effectiveness evaluation metrics; third, the classification of marketing effectiveness evaluation metrics for particular marketing activities groups is proposed, and finally, conclusions are drawn.

The literature review: importance of evaluating marketing effectiveness
Marketing effectiveness refers to the extent to which marketing activities contribute to the achievement of the organisation's objectives (Andrews et al., 2014).Similarly, marketing effectiveness presented by Castañeda et al. (2020) is the measure of commercial impact of a marketing initiative or campaign in achieving the organisation's objectives, such as increased sales or market share, improved brand awareness or customer intention.In comparison, Aggarwal and Mittal (2022) define marketing effectiveness as the extent to which marketing objectives are achieved and because of a result of marketing tactics, either by increasing sales, profits, or market share, or by building brand equity and customer loyalty.Complementary to Ibrahim and Aljarah (2018), marketing effectiveness is the extent to which marketing goals are achieved, including customer equity, increasing sales and enhancing brand image.Meanwhile, Karlíček at al. (2014) defines marketing effectiveness as the measurements of achievements of marketing objectives and highlights to main area, such as customer satisfaction and profitability increase.Based on the definitions of marketing effectiveness it is generally viewed as the ability of marketing activities to achieve organisation's marketing objectives, such as increase sales, market share, brand awareness, and customer loyalty.The specific measures of marketing effectiveness may vary depending on the marketing objectives and industry as conclude the Koob (2021).
In addition to discussion on marketing effectiveness mentioned earlier, other scientists have also presented views on this topic.According to Park and Namkung (2022), marketing effectiveness is the extent to which marketing efforts lead to better company performance, customer satisfaction, and brand equity.Authors argue that a comprehensive understanding of marketing effectiveness requires a focus of both short-term and longterm outcomes.This definition is in line with the views of Andrews et al. (2014), Aggarwal and Mittal (2022), and Ibrahim and Aljarah (2018) who emphasise the importance of achieving marketing objectives, including increasing sales, market share, customer equity, and brand image.
In the other hand, Yang et al. (2022) and Jamil et al. (2022) offer a different perspective on marketing effectiveness.Authors argue that effectiveness should not be solely based on achieving company objectives but also on creating value for customers.They define marketing effectiveness as the extent to which marketing activities create customer value and enhance customer relationships, leading to customer loyalty and advocacy.This view is supported by Fetais et al. (2022), Ibrahim (2021) and Malarvizhi et al. (2022) who state that marketing effectiveness should be measured based on the commercial impact of marketing activities on customer behaviour, rather than just on achieving company objectives.
To continue Hagen et al. (2022) define marketing effectiveness as the ability of an organization to create customer value thorough the use of its marketing resources.Similarly, Hacioglu and Gök (2013), define marketing effectiveness as the extent to which marketing efforts enhance satisfaction and loyalty, and contribute to the achievement of organisational goals.In contrast, Chun et al. (2020) argue that marketing effectiveness should be measured by its impact on financial performance, such as increases in sales, profit, and market share.They contend that the ultimate goal of marketing is to generate financial returns for the organization, and that measuring the marketing effectiveness in terms of customer value or satisfaction may not be sufficient.
Contributing to Martensen and Mouritsen (2017) studies, as in the current business environment, organisations are under pressure to demonstrate the results from performed marketing activities to senior management and shareholders, and need to show the ability of marketing deliver the intended value to the customer and create sustainable competitive advantage for the organisation.Evaluations of marketing effectiveness can help to demonstrate the financial impact from marketing activities and plan more carefully marketing budgets (Chun et al., 2020;Hagen et al., 2022;Porto et al., 2017).
In the light of the diverse perspectives on marketing effectiveness, it is essential to identify the commonalities and differences among the various definitions.To facilitate a better understanding of marketing effectiveness and its role in marketing strategy, the summary of the definitions provided by various authors is presented in Table 1.
The topic of marketing effectiveness evaluation is widely discussed by different researchers.Overall, the definitions of marketing effectiveness vary depending on perspective of authors.By examining these definitions collectively, it is possible to gain a more comprehensive understanding of marketing effectiveness and its implications for marketing practitioners.Some authors emphasise the importance of customer value and satisfaction, while others focus on financial outcomes such as sales and profits.However, the comprehensive classification of marketing effectiveness evaluation methods and metrics, and its' alignment to specific marketing activities is missing in academic literature.In order to achieve the research aim and main tasks, the following research methodology has been designed.

Research methodology
To solve the research problem on identification of metrics for marketing activities effectiveness evaluation, the following research methodology has been designed (Figure 1).There have been raised three complimentary questions for identification of the marketing metrics for evaluation of effectiveness of different marketing activities.Firstly, the range of different marketing activities have to be analysed, then effectiveness metrics have to be identified, and finally the alignment of specific marketing effectiveness metrics for specific activities have to be made.The search parameters, selection of the article and search results are delivered in Figure 2. The existing literature review was giving an opportunity to analyze marketing effectiveness, marketing activities, marketing evaluation and marketing metrics related topics.However, most studies focus marketing effectiveness for specific industries, or present analysis from perspectives of marketing management, or subsequently discuss the effect from particular marketing initiative.However, the wide range of metrics for evaluation of effectiveness for particular marketing activities are not found.Analysis of selected the most significant academic The extent to which marketing efforts lead to better company performance, customer satisfaction, and brand equity, including financial performance such as sales, profit, and market share Yang et al. (2022); Jamil et al. (2022) The extent to which marketing activities create customer value and enhance customer relationships, leading to customer loyalty and advocacy articles was accomplished and helped to answer the research questions, formulate conclusions for this study.

Review on types of marketing activities
Research question 1: What major types of marketing activities are analysed in academic studies?
When examining the variety of marketing activities, it is crucial to review different types and their application across different business sectors (Hagen et al., 2022;Niemand et al., 2020;Ibrahim, 2021).The selection of suitable tools for marketing activities for different marketing campaigns, relies on the goals and tasks set by the businesses, available budget and resources, and finally, the expected outcomes (Niemand et al., 2020;Porto et al., 2017;Rauhut & Rauhut Kompaniets, 2020).
Digital marketing offers numerous benefits, as advanced technologies enable precise analytics, result tracking, campaign flow adjustments, competitor behaviour monitoring, and to international audiences, among other advantages (Martensen & Mouritsen, 2016).The impact of digitalisation on marketing activities is significant, leading to increased sales, expanded sales channels, enhanced company, product, and service, promotion, reduced sales cycle time, and location and time-independent purchasing (Milichovský & Šimberová, 2015).As the landscape of marketing activities evolves, it's increasingly important to determine the most relevant metrics for measuring the effectiveness of marketing activities.In the following part of the study the examination of variety of marketing effectiveness metrics proposed by different authors is being analysed.

Marketing effectiveness metrics
Research question 2: What metrics do authors suggest using to evaluate marketing effectiveness?
Before evaluating of marketing effectiveness, it is crucial to identify suitable and necessary metrics for tracking the impact on different audiences and core target markets (Andrews et al., 2014;Hofacker et al., 2016).Karlíček et al. (2014) emphasizes that the identification and prioritisation of primary gaps in the information collected is critical to appropriate evaluation of marketing activities.Koob (2021) and De Vries (2019) stress the importance of evaluating the success of marketing strategies against competitors and the organization competitive position.Identifying customer needs and expectations is also vital to meeting high market and customer demands (Niemand et al., 2020).Subsequently, Oberg (2020) proposed that right planning steps that organization should invest in to attain marketing objectives are crucial, and Tongdhamachart and Niyomsilpa (2022) asserts that the identification of reasonable marketing budget and understanding the quantification of the leverage from investing to diverse marketing activities is vital for marketing effectiveness evaluation.These aspects argued by different authors help analyze the impact of marketing on organization's business goals.
The evaluation of marketing effectiveness allows organisations to understand the return on investment of the marketing activities, influenced by different areas, identify the strengths and weaknesses of marketing strategies, and make informed decisions for future initiatives.The following discussion brings overview of the main marketing effectiveness evaluation metrics and how different marketing activities can be evaluated by those.

Research question 3: Which metrics to consider for evaluation of marketing activities effectiveness?
This part of the research presents the most important metrics, identified in academic studies for the major marketing activities groups.Marketing effectiveness evaluation metrics summary by different marketing activities is presented in Table 3.
For digital marketing activities authors recommend evaluating the activities using: -Traffic and Engagement Metrics: This group includes metrics that measure website traffic, engagement, and user behavior.It includes metrics like web traffic sources, page views, returning visitors, clickthrough rate, bounce rate, and sessions by device type.These metrics are important for evaluating the effectiveness of digital marketing in driving website traffic, engagement, and user behavior (Castañeda et al., 2020;Gao et al., 2022;Ginevičius et al., 2013;Hagen et al., 2022;Malarvizhi et al., 2022); -Conversion Metrics: This group includes metrics that measure the conversion rate and effectiveness of digital marketing campaigns in generating leads, sales, and other desired actions.It includes metrics like leads, cost per lead, conversion rate, goal completion rate, purchase funnel, online conversions metric, average lead score, and cost per action.These metrics are important for evaluating the effectiveness of digital marketing in generating conversions and driving business growth (Melović et al., 2021;Milichovský & Šimberová, 2015;Niemand et al., 2020;Oberg, 2020).-Financial Metrics: This group includes metrics that measure the financial impact and ROI of digital marketing campaigns.It includes metrics like customer acquisition cost, customer lifetime value, return on marketing investment (ROMI), incremental sales, marketing originated customers, and customer share by category.These metrics are important for evaluating the financial performance of digital marketing and its contribution to the overall business success (Sundermann & Munnukka, 2022;Tanasiichuk et al., 2022;Taylor et al., 2020;Tongdhamachart & Niyomsilpa, 2022;Ziółkowska, 2021).SEO marketing can be evaluated by marketing efforts in driving website traffic, improving visibility in search engine results pages, creating effective content, and building a strong backlink profile.
-Traffic and Visibility Metrics: This group includes metrics that measure the visibility and traffic generated by SEO efforts.It includes metrics like SEO traffic, organic search traffic for SEO optimization, keyword opportunity, keyword click-through rate, and SEO keyword ranking.These metrics are important for evaluating the effectiveness of SEO efforts in driving website traffic and improving the visibility of the website in search engine results pages (SERPs) (Ginevičius et al., 2013;Ibrahim & Aljarah, 2018;Jamil et al., 2022;Kisiołek et al., 2020).-Content Metrics: This group includes metrics that measure the performance and effectiveness of -content created for SEO.It includes metrics like pageviews, average time to new content, top viewed posts, and content backlog.These metrics are important for evaluating the effectiveness of content created for SEO in generating traffic, engagement, and user behavior (Niemand et al., 2020;Porto et al., 2017;Rauhut & Rauhut Kompaniets, 2020;Shpak et al., 2020;Tsvetanova, 2018;Yoon et al., 2022).-Link Building Metrics: This group includes metrics that measure the effectiveness of link building efforts.It includes metrics like domain authority and link building metrics.These metrics are important for evaluating the effectiveness of link building efforts in improving the website's authority and backlink profile, which can have a positive impact on SEO performance (Li & Meng, 2022;Martensen & Mouritsen, 2017, 2016;Milichovský & Šimberová, 2015).Social Media marketing metrics are important for evaluating the effectiveness of social media marketing efforts in creating engagement with the audience, growing the audience, driving traffic to the website, and generating conversions that contribute to the overall business success.Those are: -Engagement Metrics: This group includes metrics that measure the level of engagement and interactions between the audience and the brand on social media platforms.It includes metrics like engagement, social interactions, social sentiment, and social shares.These metrics are important for evaluating the effectiveness of social media marketing efforts in creating and maintaining engagement with the audience (De Vries, 2019;Fetais et al., 2022;Ibrahim, 2021;Ibrahim & Aljarah, 2018;Shang et al., 2022;Sohaib et al., 2022;Awad et al., 2022).-Audience Metrics: This group includes metrics that measure the growth and behavior of the audience on social media platforms.It includes metrics like followers' growth, web visitors by channel source, social visitors' conversion rate, and audience behavior on different social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media channels.These metrics are important for evaluating the effectiveness of social media marketing efforts in growing the audience and driving traffic to the website (Malarvizhi et al., 2022;Milichovský & Šimberová, 2015;Moslehpour et al., 2021;Niemand et al., 2020;Wagdi et al., 2022;Yang et al., 2022).-Conversion Metrics: This group includes metrics that measure the effectiveness of social media marketing efforts in generating conversions and driving business growth.It includes metrics like traffic conversions and conversion rate.These metrics are important for evaluating the effectiveness of social media marketing efforts in generating leads, sales, and other desired actions that contribute to the overall business success (Aggarwal & Mittal, 2022;Awad et al., 2022;Camilleri, 2017;Ibrahim, 2021;Jamil et al., 2022;Khan et al., 2019;Park & Namkung, 2022;Ruangkanjanases et al., 2022).Email marketing metrics used to evaluate the effectiveness of email marketing campaigns in engaging subscribers, driving traffic to the website, and generating conversions that contribute to the overall business success.By tracking metrics such as open rates, clickthrough rates, conversion rates, subscriber growth rates, and website traffic, marketers can identify areas where their email campaigns are succeeding and where they need improvement (Ginevičius et al., 2013;Hacioglu and Gök, 2013;Khan et al., 2019;Li & Meng, 2022;Lorente Páramo et al., 2021;Melović et al., 2021;Milichovský & Šimberová, 2015;Niemand et al., 2020;Palamarchuk, 2021;Sohaib et al., 2022;Yousefian et al., 2021).
Mobile marketing metrics is that they provide insight into how users engage with mobile apps and how to optimize mobile app performance, such as evaluating the revenue potential of a mobile app and for making strategic decisions about pricing and monetization; as well measure the cost of acquiring new users and loyal users, respectively; lastly, indicating the level of engagement and satisfaction of users; and finaly provides insights into user behavior, such as how long users retain the app and whether there are any issues with the user experience that may be driving users to uninstall the app (Ginevičius et al., 2013;Hofacker et al., 2016;Jamil et al., 2022;Khan et al., 2019;Li & Meng, 2022;Martensen & Mouritsen, 2016;Milichovský & Šimberová, 2015;Niemand et al., 2020;Pham, 2022;Sohaib et al., 2022;Yoon et al., 2022).
The overview of major metrics groups defined for marketing activities effectiveness evaluation is provided in Table 3.The metrics have been grouped by their respective marketing activities, such as digital marketing, social engine marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, content marketing, mobile marketing, e-commerce, broadcast and television, outdoor and print, video and visual marketing activities.This summary is important and valuable as provides a comprehensive overview of various marketing effectiveness evaluation metrics groups, thereby contributing to the existing area of the research.The summary offers a useful resource for organisations seeking evaluate the impact of their marketing activities.Furthermore, the overview of marketing effectiveness evaluation metrics collection emphasises the importance of selecting appropriate metrics for different marketing activities to ensure accurate evaluation of marketing impact.Overall, the result of this study provides a valuable contribution to the literature on marketing effectiveness evaluation metrics and can help organisations optimise their strategies for maximum impact.

Conclusions
This research provides a comprehensive review of the importance of evaluating marketing activities' effectiveness.It proposes a classification framework for selecting appropriate metrics for evaluating the effectiveness of marketing activities in the current business environment.This study highlights the significance of regularly assessing the success of marketing efforts using appropriate metrics, which helps to enhance future marketing activities and improve the return on investment.
Through a detailed analysis of different types of marketing activities, including Digital Marketing, Search Engine (SEO) Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Email Marketing, Print and Outdoor, Content Marketing, Mobile Marketing, E-commerce, Broadcast and TV, Video and Visual Marketing, this study identifies the main research problem of selecting appropriate metrics for evaluating marketing activities' effectiveness.
To address this problem, a range of metrics groups have been proposed and discussed in academic literature, including market share, financial, customer, performance, risk, sales and distribution, pricing strategy, promotion and advertising, control related metrics.These metrics groups have been aligned with specific marketing activities to facilitate the selection of the most appropriate metrics for evaluating the effectiveness of a particular marketing activity.
The contribution of this research to the academic literature is in establishment of an evaluation foundation for the marketing effectiveness evaluation system.The proposed classification framework provides a useful tool for marketers and business managers to select the right metrics for accurate evaluation, ultimately leading to improved decision-making and enhanced marketing effectiveness.
The main limitation of this research consists of its limited study sources.Therefore, further research should use of the knowledge not only of the internal environment, but also the external and international environment to ascertain the influence of the corporate performance measurement system in literature and practical cases.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Methodology phases for the identification of marketing activity effectiveness evaluation metrics (created by the authors)

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Parameters for search at Web of Science Clarivate Analytics database (created by authors) The search process is limited to the articles published between 2013 and 2023 years period.It takes into scope scientific publications from Web of Science database.The search process started with identification of search parameters for Web of Science Clarivate Database and the keywords and other search criteria, are presented in Figure 2.The existing literature review was giving an opportunity to analyze marketing effectiveness, marketing activities, marketing evaluation and marketing metrics related topics.However, most studies focus marketing effectiveness for specific industries, or present analysis from perspectives of marketing management, or subsequently discuss the effect from particular marketing initiative.However, the wide range of metrics for evaluation of effectiveness for particular marketing activities are not found.Analysis of selected the most significant academic

Table 3 .
Summary of marketing effectiveness metrics groups (created by authors)

Table 4 .
Marketing effectiveness evaluation metrics groups summary by activities (created by authors)