What Marketing Research Can Actually Explain

Marketing AnalyticsEisend, M. · 2015Journal of Marketing
Topicsmeta-analysis·effect size·marketing knowledge·second-order meta-analysis·knowledge accumulation·pricing·consumer behavior

You're deciding how much weight to put on "the research says" when a team pushes back on a plan. This finding cuts against the instinct that marketing evidence is softer than the established social sciences: the typical marketing study explains about as much as the typical psychology study does. But the same evidence says not to expect that research base to keep getting sharper on its own: it's grown into a mature field, and a few areas already carry most of the confidence. Knowing which areas that is changes how hard you push back versus how much you ask for local testing.

Marketing research explains about as much of market behavior as psychology does — and it isn't getting stronger over time, it's leveling off.

A large pooling of marketing research across eight subject areas puts marketing's average predictive power on par with, or slightly ahead of, long-established fields like psychology and social psychology. But that knowledge base isn't accelerating: it's maturing, with a few pockets still gaining ground and most holding steady.

Data chart

Some areas of marketing research have stronger evidence than others

Pricing0.36Consumer Behavior0.28All Marketing (average)0.24New Product Development0.20Research Methods0.15

Evidence strength differs sharply by topic, so leaders should trust pricing and consumer-behavior findings more than methods or new-product findings.

Action guide

  1. Treat "the research says" as credible by default; marketing evidence explains market behavior about as well as established psychology research does.
  2. Lean hardest on findings from pricing and consumer-behavior research.Since those areas currently carry the strongest evidence base.
  3. Treat findings from research-methods topics and new-product-development topics as more tentative, and pair them with local testing before betting a major decision on them.
  4. Expect consumer-behavior research specifically to keep getting stronger.Since it's the one area still gaining ground — a good area to keep watching as new studies land.
  5. Don't expect the overall evidence base to get dramatically stronger on its own in the near term; it has matured rather than accelerated.So plan on today's confidence levels holding rather than automatically improving.

Evidence

  • Across a huge pool of marketing studies, the average predictive strength is a moderate one — on par with or slightly stronger than similar pooled reviews in psychology and social psychology.
  • Applied, that average level of knowledge is associated with typical success rates moving from roughly 38% to 62%, even though a large share of what drives any outcome remains unexplained.
  • Evidence strength is uneven by topic: pricing research is the strongest, consumer-behavior research is next-strongest, while research methods and new-product development are the weakest.
  • Marketing's overall knowledge base has grown over time but is now leveling off, consistent with a maturing field rather than one still accelerating.
  • Consumer behavior is the one area still gaining strength today, after an earlier dip — every other area is flat, declining, or already leveled off.
  • The longer a specific topic has been studied, the weaker its newest findings tend to be, consistent with well-studied topics having fewer big discoveries left to make.
  • Studies with stronger findings tend to get cited more, suggesting the research community already treats stronger effect sizes as more valuable.

Key takeaway

Marketing evidence is about as strong as psychology's, but it has matured rather than kept accelerating.

Source

Eisend, M. (2015). Have we progressed marketing knowledge? A meta-meta-analysis of effect sizes in marketing research. Journal of Marketing, 79(3), 23–40. https://doi.org/10.1509/jm.14.0288

Read the paper ↗

Evidence strength: Strong. The study pools 176 marketing meta-analyses (1,841 effect sizes from more than 7,500 primary studies, 1918-2012); it measures how much marketing research as a body of knowledge explains market behavior, not the financial return or ROI of any specific marketing action.