Organic Percentage Post #1,149

The majority of you under-estimate how much business you generate without the aid of marketing. 

In the example I've been working through for the past few months, the brand estimated that just 15.2% of sales are "organic" and are not driven by marketing.

Obviously, the brand is wrong. This brand has email holdout tests, and knows how much of the email total happens when emails aren't sent. The brand has print holdout tests, and knows how much of the print total happens when print isn't put in the mail. The brand knows what happens when their search/social budgets are trimmed. They know they'll get more sales ... but they attribute organic sales to marketing efforts regardless.

The more organic sales you attribute to marketing efforts, the more valuable your marketing team looks. See how that works?

The best brands I work with have a large chunk of unattributed sales. They know that customers mysteriously wobble into purchases ... successful businesses do that all day, every day.