Nordfors argued that the real issue is not measurement capacity but decision clarity. Marketing, finance and analytics teams often work with different datasets, definitions and reporting structures, creating fragmented views of performance. His perspective focused on how organisations can move beyond reporting metrics and instead build a measurement framework that actively steers marketing investments – connecting day-to-day optimisation with long-term commercial growth.
For many organisations, the problem is not a lack of data – it is that data lives in silos and does not reliably inform the decisions that matter. Web analytics, brand tracking, performance dashboards and finance reports often tell different stories, making it hard to see the full effect of the total investment.
Andreas Nordfors stressed that the real upside lies in using measurement to steer, not just to report. When marketers systematically optimise allocation across channels, pacing over time, creative and executional quality, and media procurement, the impact on ROI can be substantial – particularly on the brand‑building side, which is often under‑measured and under‑steered.
Watch a clip from the event
Start from decisions, not tools
Nordfors’ core message was simple: start from decisions, not tools. Most organisations do the opposite – they start from whichever tools and data they already have, then try to reverse‑engineer business questions those tools might answer. That’s how you end up with sophisticated dashboards that don’t actually change where the money goes.
Instead, he argued for flipping the sequence:
- Define the decisions marketing must support.
- Clarify the cadence of those decisions.
- Agree the KPIs that genuinely guide those calls.
- Only then choose the methods and tools needed.
He broke decision‑making into three rhythms:
- Strategic (yearly/quarterly) – questions such as:
- How large should our yearly marketing budget be?
- When do we run our major reach campaigns?
- What market position are we aiming for over the next few years?
- Tactical (monthly/weekly) – for example:
- Do we need to reallocate spend between channels?
- Should we adjust upcoming campaign plans?
- Are we pacing investments in a way that matches demand and seasonality?
- Operational (weekly/daily) – highly granular calls:
- Are specific campaigns hitting targets?
- Which creatives should be paused, tweaked or scaled?
- Do we need to adjust bids or frequency caps in certain platforms?
Each layer requires a different level of detail and a different type of evidence. Trying to run all three on exactly the same data or KPIs is what leads to either over‑complication at the top, or over‑simplification at the bottom.
KPIs that connect fast signals to slow value
Once the decision rhythms are clear, Nordfors’ next step is to design KPI ladders that link fast‑moving indicators to slower, commercial outcomes.
On the operational side, marketers are awash with platform metrics – CPC, CPM, CPA, view‑through‑rate, engagement, in‑platform “lifts” and so on. These are not inherently bad; they are often very useful for daily optimisation. But in Nepa’s view, they only deserve a prominent place in management reporting if they are demonstrably correlated with higher‑level brand and sales measures.
In practice, that means:
- Identifying which brand KPIs (for example awareness, consideration, brand attributes) and sales KPIs (for example short‑term sales, baseline trends, CLV) matter most for the business.
- Testing and quantifying how operational digital metrics relate to changes in those brand and sales KPIs.
- Pruning dashboards so that only those operational metrics with a proven link are treated as leading indicators for long‑term value.
Everything else may still be interesting, but it should not drive big strategic calls. Otherwise, the organisation risks optimising for what is easiest to move, not for what truly moves the P&L.
You don’t need a tool – you need a toolkit
As he put it during the session, “There isn’t one tool you can click and be done – you need a toolkit that works together.” That toolkit thinking is at the heart of Nepa’s approach.
Rather than betting everything on a single method, Nepa combines:
- Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM) – to understand the incremental effect of all channels and external factors on sales over time, short‑ and long‑term.
- Brand tracking – to monitor brand funnel and attributes and link them to future commercial outcomes.
- Campaign evaluations and ad tracking – to diagnose creative and executional performance at the level of individual campaigns or assets.
Used in isolation, each tool has blind spots. MMM can under‑value long‑term brand effects if they are not explicitly modelled. Brand tracking alone cannot say which touchpoints drove the change. Campaign evaluations can show which ads cut through, but not how they play with the rest of the mix.
Combined, they become a strategic steering system:
- MMM shows which channels and investments drive sales in the short and longer term.
- Brand tracking shows whether those investments are building the right associations and consideration.
- Campaign evaluations explain whether low ROI is a media issue or a creative issue.
Nordfors illustrated how this plays out in practice. If you only look at a “ROI‑only” MMM, some channels – TV, for example – may appear to under‑perform and become easy candidates for cuts. When you overlay brand tracking and campaign evaluation, you may discover that:
- TV’s short‑term sales ROI looks weaker because much of its value appears in long‑term brand effects, which are not captured in a pure short‑term model.
- A specific burst under‑performed because the creative did not cut through, not because the medium itself is ineffective.
In that situation, the right action is not necessarily “cut TV”; it might be “fix the creative, maintain or even increase TV, then reassess”. Without a toolkit view, it is very easy to kill the wrong thing.
From reporting to steering
Ultimately, Nordfors’ message was that the +50% ROI opportunity many marketers are looking for will not appear from one clever tweak or one new dashboard. It comes from:
- Agreeing which decisions matter at each level.
- Building shared KPIs that connect fast and slow metrics.
- Deploying a coherent toolkit where MMM, brand tracking and campaign evaluations reinforce each other.
- Embedding rhythms where cross‑functional teams actually sit down, look at the evidence and change plans.
When that happens, measurement stops being an after‑the‑fact justification and becomes a way of steering marketing as a business lever – reallocating spend, balancing brand and performance, and giving both the CMO and CFO a clearer line of sight between euros spent and value created.
Published on: 16TH MAR 2026