Original research · Published annually
The Marketing Decision Delta
A yearly measure of how well marketing organizations actually decide, not how much they produce. Three questions, asked independently of four leaders inside the same company. The distance between their answers is the finding.
The instrument
Three questions · Four respondents · One organization
Question One
What changed?
A factual claim about the last period. Tests whether the organization shares a common record.
Question Two
Why did it change?
A causal claim, with the evidence behind it. Tests whether reporting produced understanding.
Question Three
What should we do next?
A decision that follows from the first two. Tests whether understanding reached the decision.
The measure: Marketing Decision Delta™
A 0–100 score for the distance between four leaders’ answers to the same three questions, shortened to Decision Delta after first mention. 0 means the leadership team gave one answer. 100 means they contradicted each other. It does not measure performance. It measures whether the organization can explain its performance.
What Decision Delta measures
Report format · 2026 edition
The figures on this page are illustrative. They show the shape of the published report, not collected results. Fieldwork for the 2026 study opens in September; the first edition publishes in January 2027 with full method and anonymized raw data.
3 in 4
leadership teams give conflicting answers to why performance changed
61
median Decision Delta across all organizations surveyed
1 in 9
answer all three questions with one voice
Agreement collapses as the question moves from fact to decision
Share of organizations where all four leaders gave a consistent answer, by question.
Two thirds of organizations sit in divergence or worse
Distribution of Decision Delta across all organizations surveyed.
Aligned 0–25 · 11%
Partial 26–50 · 24%
Divergent 51–75 · 41%
Contradictory 76–100 · 24%
Method
- Four respondents per organization, holding different roles. One must sit outside marketing.
- Questions are answered independently and in writing. No discussion before submission.
- Answers are scored for consistency by two independent raters, blind to the organization.
- Minimum 100 organizations per edition, across sector and revenue band.
- Method and anonymized raw data published in full alongside every edition.
- Participating organizations receive their own Decision Delta score before publication.
Participate
The 2026 fieldwork window opens in September. Participation takes each respondent about twelve minutes, and your organization receives its own score and benchmark before anything is published.
Join the 2026 studyOrganization-level results are never published or identified.
Why this exists
Marketing is measured more thoroughly than it has ever been, and understood no better. Every survey of the field counts spend, headcount, channels and tools. None of them ask the only question that determines whether any of it compounds: can the people responsible explain what happened, and agree on what to do about it?
Reporting tells you what an organization sees. Spread tells you whether it can act on it.
Decision Delta exists to make that measurable, annually, in public, so that a claim about marketing decision quality rests on evidence instead of anecdote.
Read the method behind the instrument