By Most of us default to Return on Investment (ROI) for measuring marketing success. It’s the tried-and-true metric that quantifies financial returns. Money in, money out. But we all know the messy reality of attribution. The prospects who subscribe and unsubscribe from our newsletters, who toss us a LinkedIn like now and then, who eventually Google us one day because they can’t remember our URL… and who then click on the Google Ad because it sits at the top of their search results. ROI alone doesn’t tell the full story. Enter Value on Investment (VOI)—a broader approach that accounts for the intangible, long-term benefits that don’t always show up in a spreadsheet.
First, What Is ROI?
Return on Investment (ROI) is a financial metric used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment. The formula is straightforward:
ROI = (Profit – Investment Cost) / Investment Cost
Marketers often use ROI to assess campaign performance, ad spend, or lead generation efforts. If you spend $10,000 on a campaign and generate $50,000 in revenue, you would do the math of ($50,000 – $10,000) / $10,000 to find out that ROI is 400%. It’s a clear metric that resonates with executives and finance teams.
That being said, it’s really hard to yield ROI from guesting on a podcast. Arguably, it’s even harder to attribute. Someone may have made a mental note to check out your brand when they heard you speak so eloquently on that podcast (you did great!), but their conversion occurred when they saw your Instagram ad and decided to tap on it. Doh! Misattribution.
Honestly, I think it’s mostly a waste of time to even try to track it all. There’s a good chance that attribution won’t be accurate, and the time you spend on setup you lose on actually doing the marketing.
(Side note: if someone wants to tell me they bought a SparkToro subscription because they heard me on a podcast, I’d be pumped to properly attribute the win.)
Now, What Is VOI?
In this new age of moving away from reliance on third-party cookies, navigating the algorithms’ suppression of links, referral traffic slowly shrinking across the web, and parsing through incorrect social media attribution (remember, 100% of your TikTok referrals and 14% of your LinkedIn referrals are marked as direct!), we need to think beyond ROI. We need to look beyond dollars in, dollars out: Enter Value on Investment (VOI). VOI expands beyond immediate financial returns to include intangible, long-term business benefits. You know, all the stuff you can’t see in GA4 (which, let’s be honest, is hard enough to figure out anyway).
Some examples include but are not limited to:
- Brand awareness
- Share of voice
- Positive sentiment
- Social media growth and engagement
- Customer satisfaction and loyalty
- Employee engagement
- Stronger reputation in your industry/audience
- Stronger business and audience relationships
- Invitations to podcasts, webinars, and conferences
Thing is, smart marketers already know the importance of VOI. They might call it a vibe check, keeping a pulse on their audience, or just… good marketing.
How Can Marketers Measure VOI?
While VOI doesn’t have a single formula like ROI, smart marketers can track it through:
- Brand sentiment analysis: Are people speaking positively about you online?
- Survey data: Customer satisfaction, NPS scores, employee feedback
- Community engagement metrics: Social media shares, comments, organic mentions
- PR and media coverage: Invitations to speak at events, podcast guest appearances, backlinks from reputable sites
…and by tracking this alongside ROI. The next time you buy a booth at a conference, take notes on the quality of discussions, the positive feedback, and the constructive feedback. You’re already tracking leads, pipeline, and ultimately, ROI. But you might not be baking in the VOI — what you’ll have learned about your audience, the helpful feedback that could inform a new feature, the handful of interested people who agree to join your private beta testing group, etc. By layering these insights over revenue data, you can paint a fuller picture of how your efforts are contributing to long-term success.
When to Use ROI vs. VOI
Smart marketers, heck, smart business leaders, generally know when a given program is ROI-trackable or VOI-trackable. A digital advertising campaign? You bet we’re checking to see if it’s Return-on-Ad-Spend (ROAS) positive. Onboarding a new marketing agency? That’s VOI, and the value is created as a result of successful onboarding. Thought leadership content? It’s a mix, but VOI should be realized a lot sooner than ROI. You should be able to see valuable engagement, discussions, and amplification sooner than you’re able to determine that XYZ amount of LinkedIn posts result in a deal won.
| Scenario | ROI | VOI |
|---|---|---|
| Digital advertising campaigns: retargeting ads on Instagram | ✅ | ❌ |
| Brand awareness initiatives: running a contest on social media that entices people to engage with your brand | ❌ | ✅ |
| Employee training programs: offering a leadership course for a new people manager | ❌ | ✅ |
| Lead generation campaigns: a gated asset on a landing page | ✅ | ❌ |
| Thought leadership: supporting your sales & marketing teams in posting on their own LinkedIn pages | ✅ | ✅ |
Smart Marketers Use ROI and VOI
Of course… we know we need to track both categories of metrics. Marketers need to balance financial outcomes with qualitative benefits. A successful marketing strategy doesn’t just drive revenue—it builds a brand, fosters trust, and creates long-term customer relationships. If you ignore VOI, you risk undervaluing initiatives that contribute to sustainable growth. You miss out on the opportunities that strengthen trust and credibility with your audience.
One place I worked at had too much of a focus on ROI — and I was too stubbornly focused on VOI. Both to our detriments. The performance marketing team burned hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on Meta ads, but because they could ostensibly prove they brought in thousands of new customers each month, they could draw the through line between ad spend and conversion. But the sloppy copy and focus on discounting ended up attracting customers who didn’t stick around. On the other side of that spectrum, I insisted the internet needed my helpful blog posts that had low search volume. They might have been “high-quality” but they didn’t meet enough business goals. The performance marketing team and I fought each other on the most extreme sides of the spectrum and uh… the company in question? It isn’t around anymore. 😅
Because You (Almost) Always Need Both
Surprise surprise, it’s never about choosing one approach over the other. The most effective marketers and business leaders know this. They understand that success isn’t always immediate or easy to quantify. They know that while a series of well-loved blog posts won’t result in immediate conversions, that blog will make it easier to get linked to, invited on those podcasts, and asked to speak at conferences.
ROI tells you how much money you made while VOI tells you how much value you created. ROI gives you the numbers to justify your marketing spend today, while VOI builds the foundation for your brand’s resilience tomorrow. The most successful marketers don’t choose between them. They balance both to create sustainable growth.
