With this in mind I took a look at our recent Measurement and Analytics Report 2016, published in association with Lynchpin, to gain some insight on how we stack up against other businesses.

The report, which is based on a survey of almost 1,000 digital professionals, shows that 42% of businesses don’t have a framework for structuring their measurement requirements.

Structuring data and processes is essential when it comes to building an overall view of the current analytics capabilities within your organisation which, in turn, allows progress and improvement based on testing and learning.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the likelihood of an organisation having a measurement framework increases with turnover. Companies with an annual turnover of more than £50m are 58% more likely to have a framework in place.

The size of the team designated to handle data also has a profound impact, with a larger team (five or more) increasing the likelihood of having a framework by 35%.

Econsultancy remains a small business, so I’m pleased that we are among the minority of SMEs with a measurement framework in place.

Data strategy

The research also asked respondents about the strategy that underpins their measurement and analytics.

Almost two-thirds (62%) of companies do not have a formally documented data analytics strategy, which is only a 6% decrease on the 2015 survey.

The fact that more organisations do not have a formal strategy implies this is an area where there is room for improvement in terms of a framework. Without a strategy in place, it is difficult to take clear measurements and consistently track whether or not KPIs are being met.

Furthermore, around a fifth (19%) of companies who do have a formal data analytics strategy report that it is for digital analytics only.

Having a merged strategy incorporating both offline and online channels should be the goal for most companies, particularly as almost two-thirds (64%) of client-side respondents said they don’t have a marketing attribution model.

For more on this topic, download the full Measurement and Analytics Report.