76 / Journal of Marketing, October 2004
Journal of Marketing
Vo
l. 68 (October 2004), 76–89
Roland T. Rust, Tim Ambler, Gregory S. Carpenter, V. Kumar, &
Rajendra K. Srivastava
Measuring Marketing Productivity:
Current Knowledge and Future
Directions
For too long, marketers have not been held accountable for showing how marketing expenditures add to share-
holder value. As time has gone by, this lack of accountability has undermined marketers’ credibility, threatened the
standing of the marketing function within the firm, and even threatened marketing’s existence as a distinct capa-
bility within the firm. This article proposes a broad framework for assessing marketing productivity, cataloging what
is already known, and suggesting areas for further research. The authors conclude that it is possible to show how
marketing expenditures add to shareholder value. The effective dissemination of new methods of assessing mar-
keting productivity to the business community will be a major step toward raising marketing’s vitality in the firm
and, more important, toward raising the performance of the firm itself. The authors also suggest many areas in
which further research is essential to making methods of evaluating marketing productivity increasingly valid, reli-
able, and practical.