Business intelligence specialist SAS Institute is developing tools to help firms model marketing activity and choose the most lucrative options

Fresh acquiring marketing resource management specialist Veridiem last week, business intelligence (BI) giant SAS Institute has detailed plans to improve the way firms gauge returns from marketing activities.

"Marketing is one of the most investment-intensive parts of many companies, but it is difficult to prove that the money it spends gets returns," said Jason Goodwin, head of solution strategy at SAS. "Our aim now is to make marketing accountable."

Goodwin said Veridiem's technology would give marketing professionals the ability to model marketing investments and better analyse returns from various marketing strategies. They could then use this data to make better-informed decisions about the mix of activities they should support.

"SAS's marketing optimisation [product] provides modeling and analytics for outbound contact marketing, but Veridiem extends that to cover all areas of marketing, such as advertising and promotions," said Goodwin. "It will allow marketing professionals to simulate strategies and work out what is the best course of action."

The new technology will also help to reduce demands on the IT department, according to Goodwin, because it will allow the marketing department to produce its own reports without requiring the services of trained data analysts.