In a recent CIM webinar, Alex Schultz, CMO at Meta, discussed the importance of distinguishing between goals and metrics in digital marketing, detailed incrementality measurement techniques and shared advice for marketers on using AI tools in their digital marketing.
Alex Schultz is CMO & VP of Analytics at Meta, overseeing global marketing and analytics. Named one of the world's most influential CMOs in 2024 by Forbes, Schultz’s work in the digital marketing sphere is unparalleled, and has influenced the way companies achieve growth in the digital age.
Schultz has also recently published a book: Click Here: The Art and Science of Digital Marketing, an all-encompassing guide to digital marketing and driving growth through it for marketers and businesses at any stage.
In his recent webinar with CIM, Schultz outlined three main topics in the session: goals, incrementality, and AI for marketing.
Goals are not metrics
Schutlz began the webinar by defining what goals and metrics are and explaining the difference between the two. The definitions he gave are:
- A goal describes what you are trying to achieve as a company
- A metric is how you try and measure that goal.
If you treat the metric as the goal, you gradually drift away from what actually matters. Goals are aspirational outcomes, while metrics measure progress.
There can sometimes be challenges defining metrics, including the need for time-bound measurements and decision-usable metrics. You should use metrics that connect directly to business value (profit, retention, high quality engagement), not superficial volume, and define them so precisely that engineering, analytics and marketing all interpret them the same way to help demonstrate clear value.
Metrics should drive experimentation and better decisions, not just justify spend.
Defining your North Star
Schultz elaborated on having a clear goal, suggesting that every company should have a North Star goal.
He discussed the characteristics of a good North Star goal, including its trade-offs and the importance of prioritisation. Your North Star should capture the reason the company exists, for example for a cruise line it may be ‘Deliver passengers safe and happy’. A North Star goal should be clear, simple, and purpose driven, and also must be business-linked and precisely defined, using examples like monthly active users and revenue.
Your North Star should also force you to prioritise what is truly important; if it doesn’t hurt to prioritise, it’s too generic. The biggest threat to the North Star is always the second goal, for example, ‘drive engagement’ or ‘fund the company’.
Incrementality measurement in marketing
During the session, Schultz introduced the concept of incrementality, emphasising the importance of measuring whether your marketing efforts have an incremental impact.
Incrementality = what changed because of your marketing that wouldn’t have happened anyway.
He explained the different layers of quality in incrementality measurement, from attribution to randomised control tests and provided examples of how to measure incrementality, including turning off channels and using matched markets.
Using incrementality measurement in marketing emphasises the importance of building a culture where the question is, "What changed because of us?"
Schultz encouraged the need to reward people for conducting tests correctly, even if the results are negative or didn’t show what you thought they would. But he also discussed the importance of owning the outcome and celebrating results that show incremental benefits.
Using incrementality measurement in B2B marketing, where businesses rely on traditional marketing approaches, can be a challenge because of:
- Long, complex sales cycles
- Multiple touches (sales, partners, marketing)
- Harder to attribute a specific deal to a single activity
That’s exactly why Schultz pushes incrementality: you need to prove that your spend is actually moving revenue, not just taking credit.
Building a broader culture of incrementality marketing, which is especially relevant in traditional B2B organisations, means shifting your mindset from:
“We ran the campaign / conference / event, so we did our job”
To:
“Did this change anything in revenue, pipeline, or adoption vs. what would have happened anyway?”
AI and marketing
Shultz then went on to share his perspective on the rapid advancements in AI and its impact on current and future marketing. He explained that understanding the current state of AI and its potential future developments is the key marketers need to stay ahead of the curve.
We know AI is reshaping marketing from end-to-end, and as Schultz explained, when you buy from platforms like Meta, Google, TikTok or Amazon, you are effectively buying AI; algorithms are optimising bids, audiences and placements in real time. Creative production is increasingly AI assisted, enabling rapid generation and iteration of assets, while analysis that once took days can now be done in minutes.
Schultz advised that organisations need to have a modern codebase and well-structured data to leverage AI effectively.
Practical tips for using AI in marketing
The webinar provided practical tips for marketers to use AI in their daily tasks, such as using AI for data analysis and generating daily briefing emails. Schultz advised marketers to learn enough coding to build simple scripts and to use AI tools like Claude and Codex to help.
Schultz encouraged marketers to use AI tools daily and to ask the AI for tips on how to improve their digital marketing skills. Building a context system for your AI will also improve its performance.
Marketers should treat AI as an execution multiplier, not a replacement for strategy: invest in clear goals and good metrics, structure your data and assets so AI tools can “read” them.
He gave recommendations for subscribing to key AI experts and emphasised the importance of staying optimistic and sceptical about AI's potential, it is not here to replace marketers, but to aid, assist and automate.
The marketers who win will pair domain expertise and effective decision-making with tool fluency, using AI to free up time for higher value thinking rather than just to do more low value work faster.
Final thoughts
Schultz’s webinar provided marketers with a simple but powerful progression: anchor everything in a clear North Star goal (not a metric), prove your impact through incrementality, and use AI as a force multiplier rather than a crutch.
The key takeaway: if you can clearly define your goal, measure what genuinely moves it, and thoughtfully deploy AI to accelerate that journey, you’ll not only defend your budgets, you’ll build marketing that truly drives the business forward.
If you want to learn how to develop your digital marketing strategy and implement advanced digital channel techniques, sign up for CIM’s Digital Marketing Strategy Masterclass now. The course will work through a step-by-step process to build a digital marketing strategy you can implement straight away.
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