This topic comes up a lot with respect to social media. Marketers have become data junkies, thanks to some highly measurable tools (like pay per click advertising and such). but it’s important to remember that there are useful things that are much harder to measure. It’s very hard to come up with a solid ROI measurement of a PR initiative or branding activities – but we know that these are useful. The same goes for some newer things. Starting a blog and building a customer community will pay off, but you cannot say “X people came to the blog and then bought things that they would not have otherwise.”

I love data, but lack of clear ROI data should be a factor in a decision, not a deal-killer.