The future of marketing isn’t about producing more. It’s about being more relevant, more credible and more measurable.

Welcome to the first edition of BMO Monday Marketing Metrics, a weekly look at the marketing statistics, consumer behaviour and industry data worth paying attention to.

Marketing metrics are often treated as numbers to report at the end of a campaign. But the most useful marketing metrics do something more important: they help us understand how people behave, what influences decisions and where marketing is actually creating value.

This week’s data points to five important shifts: marketers are struggling to understand performance, content is becoming more commercially important, authenticity is becoming a competitive advantage, customers are researching for longer, and AI is making strong marketing fundamentals more important.

Here are five marketing metrics and insights worth knowing this week.

1. 80% of marketers don’t fully understand why their campaigns succeed or fail

One of the most revealing marketing metrics this week isn’t about clicks, impressions or engagement.

It’s about understanding.

According to research from OnDevice, 80% of marketers say they do not completely understand what contributed to the success or failure of their advertising campaigns.

Even more tellingly:

• 63% rely on educated guesses based on indicators such as sales spikes or click rates.
• 75% fall back on campaign delivery metrics such as reach and click-through rate when performance is difficult to explain.
• 30% say their biggest measurement challenge is having plenty of data but no single source of truth.
• 16% admit they effectively move on to the next campaign without knowing why the previous one succeeded or failed.

The problem, then, isn’t necessarily a lack of marketing data.

It’s a lack of clarity.

What does this marketing metric mean for businesses?

Having hundreds of data points doesn’t automatically make a marketing strategy data-driven.

If you know that a post received 10,000 impressions, you have a number. But if you don’t know whether those impressions reached the right people, changed perception, generated interest or contributed to a commercial outcome, the metric has limited strategic value.

Good marketing measurement should answer three questions:

What happened? Why did it happen? What should we do next?

That’s the difference between reporting marketing metrics and actually using them to make better decisions.

AI is likely to make this even more important. 57% of marketers surveyed believe AI will make robust measurement more important, while 24% worry AI tools could prioritise speed over statistical accuracy.

BMO takeaway
Don’t measure everything. Measure what helps you make better decisions. A smaller number of meaningful marketing metrics can be far more valuable than a dashboard full of numbers nobody knows how to interpret.

2. 74% of B2B marketers say content marketing generated demand or leads

Content marketing is often dismissed as a brand-building exercise, something businesses need to do because “everyone is on LinkedIn.”

The data suggests it is becoming much more commercially important.

Research from Sopro found that 74% of B2B marketers say content marketing helped generate demand or leads during the previous 12 months.

Almost half also said content marketing helped generate sales or revenue.

Investment intentions reinforce the shift:

• 52% expect to increase investment in thought leadership content.
• 61% expect their organisation to increase investment in video.
• Almost a third have increased their use of YouTube over the previous 12 months.

This matters because the best B2B content doesn’t necessarily ask someone to buy.

It gives them a reason to trust you before they’re ready to buy.

A useful article, a strong point of view, an insightful video, a founder’s perspective or a genuinely helpful resource can influence someone long before they fill in a contact form.

What does this marketing metric mean for businesses?

Your content shouldn’t exist simply to fill a content calendar.

Every piece should have a job. It might:

• Build awareness
• Demonstrate expertise
• Answer a question
• Challenge an assumption
• Build trust
• Create demand
• Support the sales process
• Help someone make a buying decision

The question shouldn’t simply be: “What should we post this week?”

It should be: “What does our audience need to understand, believe or solve next?”

BMO takeaway
Stop treating content as output. Start treating it as a commercial asset.

3. More than 80% of consumers believe influencers should actually use the products they promote

The influencer marketing industry has grown enormously, but consumer expectations are becoming increasingly straightforward: if you’re recommending it, you should actually know it.

Research from Sprout Social found that more than 80% of consumers believe influencers should use the products they promote, while 44% believe influencers should be long-term users before endorsing a product.

Brands also report challenges finding creators who genuinely fit:

• 42% struggle to find creators who align with their target audience.
• 41% struggle with alignment to brand values.
• 38% identify measuring ROI as a major challenge.

Interestingly, employee-generated content is also becoming increasingly influential. 40% of consumers and 62% of Gen Z discover new products through employee-generated content at least once a month.

At the same time, consumers remain sceptical of AI influencers. 44% aren’t comfortable with brands partnering with AI influencers, while another 30% say their view depends on the context.

What does this marketing metric mean for businesses?

Reach isn’t the same thing as credibility.

The right creator isn’t necessarily the person with the largest audience. They might be the person who has genuine experience, understands the problem your product solves and has an audience that trusts their opinion.

The same principle applies to businesses.

A founder explaining what they’ve learned, an employee showing how a product works or a customer sharing a genuine experience can often create a level of credibility that polished brand content can’t replicate.

BMO takeaway
Authenticity isn’t a content style. It’s a trust signal. As AI makes it easier to produce polished content at scale, genuine experience becomes more valuable.

4. Consumers spend an average of 76 days planning and booking a trip

One of the biggest mistakes marketers can make is thinking about the customer journey as a single moment: See, Click, Buy.

The travel data tells a very different story.

Research from The Trade Desk found that consumers spend an average of 76 days planning and booking a trip.

The journey breaks down into three stages:

• 17-25 days: inspiration
• 33-47 days: research and planning
• 17-24 days: booking

During that journey, 78% compare multiple brands before booking, while 73% are open to trying a new travel brand.

AI is also entering the process, with 59% using AI as an initial starting point for travel planning. However, only 22% use AI during the core research stage, with authentic reviews and personal recommendations still highly important.

The open internet remains critical too:

• 66% say online content inspires them to consider a trip.
• 68% use open-internet sites to research and plan.

What does this marketing metric mean for businesses?

Although this research focuses on travel, the underlying behaviour is much broader.

People rarely see a brand once and immediately make a considered purchase.

They discover you. They research you. They compare you. They look for proof. They ask other people. They come back. And eventually, they decide.

That means your marketing needs to work before the conversion point.

If someone searches your business, reads your website, looks at your social media and asks ChatGPT about you, what do they find?

BMO takeaway
Don’t just market for the moment someone is ready to buy. Market for the weeks and months before it. Your website, content, social channels, reviews, thought leadership and brand positioning are all part ofthe buying journey.

5. AI isn’t replacing the fundamentals of marketing, it’s making them more important

AI appears throughout this week’s marketing metrics.

Consumers are already using AI during research. Marketers expect AI to change how campaigns are measured. And brands are experimenting with AI-generated influencers and content.

But there’s an interesting contradiction.

As technology makes it easier to produce content, the value of strategic thinking increases.

AI can help create more content. It doesn’t automatically make that content:

• Relevant
• Differentiated
• Credible
• Strategically useful
• Memorable
• Trustworthy

In fact, when everyone has access to tools capable of producing competent content, competence becomes less of a differentiator.

What does this marketing metric mean for businesses?

The competitive advantage won’t necessarily come from who uses AI.

It will come from who uses AI while still having something worth saying.

Strong positioning matters. Good brand strategy matters. Understanding your audience matters. Measurement matters. Authenticity matters. And having a genuinely useful point of view matters.

AI can accelerate the execution. It can’t replace the reason you’re doing it in the first place.

BMO takeaway
Use AI to make good marketing faster, not to make bad marketing cheaper.

So, what do these marketing metrics actually tell us?

Individually, each statistic is interesting.

Together, they paint a much bigger picture.

The future of marketing isn’t about producing more. It’s about producing more of what matters.

The businesses that stand out will be the ones that:

Measure better. They understand what’s actually driving performance rather than relying on vanity metrics.

Create with purpose. Their content isn’t there simply to fill a feed. It has a strategic role.

Build genuine trust. They use real expertise, real people and real experiences to build credibility.

Show up earlier. They understand that customers research and compare long before they convert.

Use AI intelligently. They use technology to accelerate their marketing without sacrificing strategy, originality or authenticity.

And perhaps the biggest marketing metric of all isn’t a number you can find in Google Analytics.

It’s whether your marketing is helping someone move from “Who are they?” to “I trust them.” to “They’re the right choice for me.”

That’s where marketing starts creating real commercial value.

The bottom line

There is no shortage of marketing metrics, marketing statistics or marketing data available to businesses today.

The challenge is knowing which numbers actually matter.

At BMO, that’s the distinction we care about: not marketing for the sake of marketing, but building brands and marketing systems that are strategic, measurable and built to create growth.

Come back next Monday for the next edition of BMO Monday Marketing Metrics, five more numbers worth knowing and, more importantly, what they actually mean for your business.

Sources

The statistics in this article are based on research reported by Marketing Week on 17 August 2026, drawing on research from OnDevice, The Trade Desk, Sopro, Sprout Social and 7Stars.

Original research roundup: Marketing Week, Measurement gaps, Generation Alpha, B2B content: 5 interesting stats to start your week