General marketers tend to measure brand-building impact, and they value traditional ad channels like television, radio and magazines more highly than DM media. DMers, on the other hand, are more interested in target marketing that generates an immediate sale, and prefer direct mail, e-mail and even mobile phones. One strange finding is that mass marketers are more likely to embrace catalogs.

As to which channels generate the greatest ROI, TV and radio are ranked near the bottom. Newspapers and magazines fare even worse. Dead last is mobile marketing, which was given the lowest rating by more than half of all respondents, although DMers are much more likely to use it.

The other survey covered in the article reveals that over 40% of the marketers polled believing it's almost impossible to measure ROI for tactical purposes, another 33% say ROI is ineffective in gauging marketing performance, and the remainder believe it isn't as important as building brand equity.

In addition, less than a third of those surveyed have faith in their company's ability to measure ROI, or to act swiftly in response to investment-return data. They don't even believe their firms can agree on a definition.

The most popular metrics are changes in brand awareness and market share, followed by attitude toward the brand. Next is impact on purchase intention. Followed by barely a fourth that bother to evaluate lifetime value.

Finally, here's a benchmark for you - on average, firms allocate 1.5% of their total marketing budget to measurement.