Is your marketing serving up questions or answers?

I've been asking people for the last year the question "What is Closed-Loop Marketing?" and I've received a wide range so responses, which is why I wanted to start the group here at FohBoh - lots of smart people here can help answer the question.

With tight marketing dollars, the underlying premise of Closed-Loop Marketing (CLM) is that you can actually understand the return on the marketing dollars you invest.  A great portion (stats suggest over 90%) of the marketing dollars spent today are not measured and the business thus has no real idea of what's working or what's not.

Imagine going to your CPA or bookkeeper and asking 'how much money do we have in the bank?' and the response is "...we've got $10,000 - plus or minus 20%" - not sure that answer would excite you much so why accept that kind of response from marketing?  There are much better answers possible, but not if we're not measuring it.

So now it's your turn - What are you measuring around your own / your clients marketing?  What kind of marketing is being done? - Social / Online / Traditional (print, TV, radio)  Do you know what's giving you the best return on your marketing investment?