Marketing Efficiency: Why Most Businesses Measure the Wrong Thing
Marketing efficiency isn’t about doing more with less.
It’s about doing less of the wrong things and more of what compounds.
Caroline Thomas specialises in marketing efficiency and recall, helping founders and senior teams understand why marketing spend doesn’t compound and how to fix it before scaling.
Most businesses aren’t inefficient because their team is slow or their agency is underperforming.
They’re inefficient because they’re measuring the wrong indicators and optimising for the wrong outcomes.
Marketing efficiency problems usually surface either when teams consider spending more, or when results fail to meet expectations.
Marketing efficiency is not about speed.
It’s not about volume.
It’s not about output.
It’s about commercial clarity
knowing what drives revenue, what creates memory, and what can finally be dropped without fear.
This page is for:
• founders already investing in marketing who feel returns should be stronger
• senior marketers under pressure to justify spend, not just activity
• finance-led organisations trying to understand what marketing actually contributes
• teams where performance looks busy but confidence is low
If you’re looking for growth hacks, channel tactics, or posting schedules, this isn’t for you.
This page will show you what marketing efficiency really means, why businesses misunderstand it, and why efficiency improves the moment you shift from reach to recall.
It will not teach you how to calculate efficiency
because that depends on your metrics, category, channels, maturity, and model.
But it will show you why your current system is overworking and underdelivering.
What marketing efficiency is
Marketing efficiency is the relationship between:
your output,
your impact,
and your commercial results.
Proper efficiency means:
• you know what moves the needle
• you stop doing things that don’t
• the things you do become more profitable over time
It is not:
• posting more
• hiring more
• adding more channels
• chasing higher reach
• producing more content
• optimising for impressions
Most marketing looks busy, not efficient.
Why most businesses think they have an efficiency problem (but don’t)
They see:
• reach dropping
• ads getting more expensive
• engagement declining
• campaigns underperforming
• content taking longer to produce
• inconsistent sales
And they assume:
“We need to fix our efficiency.”
But these symptoms rarely point to an efficiency issue.
They point to a recall issue.
Left unaddressed, recall weakness doesn’t just reduce performance.
It increases dependency on spend, raises acquisition costs, and makes every future decision riskier.
This is why efficiency problems tend to surface during:
• budget reviews
• board scrutiny
• growth plateaus
• funding pressure
• leadership changes
Efficiency breaks down because recall is weak.
Not the other way around.
How recall creates efficiency (the part most people miss)
Marketing becomes efficient when:
• every activity reinforces memory
• messaging aligns with Buying Moments
• Category Entry Points guide creative
• recall cues are repeated consistently
• demand is triggered predictably
This is why recall-driven businesses:
• waste less
• stress less
• pay less for acquisition
• convert more consistently
• grow without increasing output
Efficiency is not created by doing more things right.
It’s created by doing fewer things that matter.
This is what the Profit Recall System is built for.
Why traditional efficiency models fail
Most businesses measure efficiency using:
• cost per lead
• impressions
• cost per click
• engagement rates
• traffic
• follower count
• view count
None of these tell you whether your marketing is:
• remembered
• commercially relevant
• driving mental availability
• influencing decisions
• converting in Buying Moments
Efficiency can’t be measured if you’re tracking the wrong things.
This is why so many dashboards look impressive
and businesses still don’t grow.
The missing layer: Measuring recall
Traditional dashboards measure activity.
Commercial dashboards measure impact.
But recall requires measuring something else entirely:
memory.
Specifically:
• whether people think of you at the right time
• whether your cues are working
• whether your moments are aligned
• whether your messaging is landing
• whether demand is forming predictably
This requires a different kind of score
one designed for recall-first marketing.
Measuring recall properly requires a composite metric, not a single number.
The Profit Recall Efficiency Score (PRES) was designed to do exactly that.
PRES: The metric that makes marketing make sense
The Profit Recall Efficiency Score (PRES) is the only metric that blends:
• performance data
• recall indicators
• commercial outcomes
It moves you away from vanity metrics
and towards commercially meaningful measurement.
You don’t need to know how to calculate it here
that’s done in the Profit Recall Sprint
but you do need to know why it matters:
PRES exposes inefficiency at the root
not at the surface.
It shows:
• where memory is weak
• where demand is leaking
• where money is wasted
• where activity isn’t creating recall
• where commercial opportunity is being missed
This is why PRES is at the heart of the Profit Recall System.
It gives you the clarity to stop doing what doesn’t matter
and double down on what does.
What efficient marketing looks like (hint: it’s calmer)
Efficient marketing feels:
• predictable
• clear
• commercially grounded
• low stress
• low waste
• low maintenance
• strategic, not reactive
It looks like:
• fewer content demands
• fewer platform switches
• less chasing of reach
• more consistency in results
• higher quality leads
• lower acquisition costs
• a unified message across the year
Efficiency isn’t the absence of work.
It’s the absence of unnecessary work.
Why efficiency breaks down over time
One of the most common ways marketing efficiency erodes is when spend increases before the underlying system is understood.
Many teams assume that higher budgets will solve performance pressure, when in reality they often amplify inefficiency that already exists. This is why increasing spend without structural clarity tends to make marketing more expensive rather than more effective.
I break this down in detail in what you should fix before increasing marketing spend, including the specific conditions that need to be in place before budget changes actually improve results.
Why you won’t find your efficiency blueprint on this page
Efficiency depends on:
• your model
• your audience
• your channels
• your maturity
• your recall strength
• your Buying Moments
• your CEPs
• your offer structure
No pillar page can calculate PRES for you
and it shouldn’t.
Efficiency isn’t something you read about.
It’s something you measure, test, and optimise
with context.
This page explains the principles
not the system.
What happens when efficiency isn’t addressed
When recall remains weak:
• spend has to increase just to stand still
• performance metrics look fine until they suddenly don’t
• marketing becomes harder to defend, not easier
• teams chase activity instead of confidence
• decisions feel reactive rather than deliberate
This is why inefficiency often isn’t noticed until budgets are already under scrutiny.
If you need clarity before making your next marketing decision
There are two places to start:
Option 1
The Marketing Decision Review (£3000)
When one decision could materially affect spend, direction, risk/confidence or momentum, this provides a calm external perspective before you commit. More info HERE
Option 2
The PRES audit
Start with a PRES Audit to identify where efficiency is currently breaking down. More info HERE
These steps give you clarity before you invest in system design.
Want clarity on your 2026 plan?
Book a Prep Session today.
Caroline Thomas Marketing
- Because followers don’t equal reach, and reach doesn’t equal revenue — recall does.
- I build marketing systems that compound, so you spend less, sell cheaper, and retain longer.
- Straight-talking strategy. No fluff. No funnels for the sake of it.
- Just marketing that’s calm, clever, and commercially efficient.