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Marketers may give lip service to return on investment, but one thing is clear: They don't want to wait for it. And many believe it can't be measured.

Those are among the findings of two new surveys.

In one, the Direct Marketing Association found that DMers rank sales/leads/revenue as their top metric, followed by response rates and profitability. Softer measurements like brand awareness trail by wide margins.

But the real eyebrow-raiser is that customer lifetime value comes in dead last.

This may reflect quarter-by-quarter pressures faced by many firms. Or it may prove that DMers haven't yet educated their financial officers on the economics of CRM.

On the other hand, the DMA study shows that general advertisers are starting to use DM tools.

“Advancing technology and a growing push for measurable ROI have led to the introduction of direct marketing tactics into even the most traditional brand media,” the DMA notes. “Calls to action, trackable offers, unique URLs and 800 numbers, list-building tactics, targeting, meticulous response analysis, and modeling have all found their way into mass media.”

That being said, not everyone is measuring the same things.

General marketers tend to measure brand-building impact. And they value traditional ad channels like television, radio and magazines more highly than DM media.

DMers are more interested in target marketing that generates an immediate sale. They prefer direct mail, e-mail and even mobile phones.

One strange finding is that mass marketers are more likely to embrace catalogs.

But it's not so surprising, given their role as retail traffic builders.

And which channels generate the greatest ROI?

Despite their popularity with general advertisers, TV and radio are ranked near the bottom. Newspapers and magazines fare even worse.

Which one is in the basement?

Mobile marketing. It was given the lowest rating by more than half of all respondents, although DMers are much more likely to use it.

But enough from the DMA. Let's turn to another source. A survey conducted jointly by the Association of National Advertisers and Marketing Measurement Analytics reveals that ROI may not be living up to the hype.

Over 40% of the marketers polled believe it's almost impossible to measure ROI for tactical purposes.

Another 33% say ROI is an ineffective in gauging marketing performance. And the remainder believe it isn't as important as building brand equity.

In addition, less than a third of those surveyed have faith in their company's ability to measure ROI, or to act swiftly in response to investment-return data. They don't even believe their firms can agree on a definition.

This study, too, seems to have gone to both general and direct marketers.

The most popular metrics are changes in brand awareness and market share, followed by attitude toward the brand.

Next is impact on purchase intention. Followed by barely a fourth that bother to evaluate lifetime value.

But there's some sign that companies are hip to direct marketing.

More than a third say they update predictive and RFM models quarterly. And some 25% tweak their look-alikes, lifetime value and attrition models, more than once a year.

What's this costing them?

On average, firms allocate 1.5% of their total marketing budget to measurement — or $2.9 million.

For more on ROI, subscribe to the MarketingROI newsletter by Richard H. Levey at http://subscribe.chiefmarketer.com/subscribe.cfm.