Marketers explain what it’s going to take for management teams to believe in digital marketing’s scalability and results.

Following a morning keynote at this week's iMedia Brand Summit in Lake Las Vegas that focused on successfully integrating digital marketing into a brand's overall marketing program, moderator Tony Romeo, CEO of Strategic Dynamics, led a power panel of experts in a discussion of the specific problems that still plague the digital medium and prevent it from sitting at the big kid's table.

Romeo referred to digital as the "Bart Simpson of marketing." When it comes to fully integrating digital into the overall marketing program, he said, "a large number of companies, perhaps most, are still behind the curve," and interactive is still viewed as "an add on."

How do we break thought this and make digital a fundamental part of the marketing mix? What is the single biggest barrier to taking online to the next level?

First to answer, Kevin Doohan, director, interactive marketing, ConAgra Foods Global Marketing, said measurability is still the biggest issue. "We're still not getting there. We have some programs but it's still difficult. Precision in measuring a sale is the biggest hurdle. It's still very difficult to translate in a mass way how many sales we get from an online program."

Steve Kerho, director of media and interactive marketing, Nissan North America, agreed, adding that the medium is still facing "issues of scale." He explained that engagement levels are very high, but "we're still trying to understand what makes effective reach and frequency."

Tim Murphy, senior director, digital marketing at Anheuser-Busch threw another problem into the mix: internal education within the brand that digital is a viable medium and "getting on the front end of the creative process."

So, after years of evangelizing interactive as the most measurable of all medium, it seems it's not as measurable as we thought, Romeo offered.

Perhaps that's why despite the XMOS studies from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and other research that suggests the appropriate percentage of overall marketing spending on digital be in the neighborhood of 10-15 percent, many marketers are not spending half as much. But as Murphy said, marketers don't necessarily have to follow those guidelines.

"I would not put a percentage on digital," he said.

Nissan's Kehro agreed, saying it all depends on the brand's objectives. "We have brands that probably shouldn't be on the web and we have brands that probably shouldn't be on TV."

Anne Murray, senior director, online marketing, Southwest Airlines, offered: "I have a lot of people who come to us and say, 'you spend so much in other media, how do we get you to spend one percent of that online?'" Instead, she would rather hear ideas of how spending on specific digital efforts would work for a specific brand-- her brand.

The question is that of allocation-- "What is the right budget to get a message across?"

With all of the panelists being in positions of serving as internal advocates of interactive in their companies, Romeo wondered how they approach their traditional counterparts and get the digital medium to sit at the same table.

ConAgra's Doohan and Anheuser-Busch's Murphy both agreed that their main tasks are to counsel the brand on what interactive can and can't do for the organization and establishing non-competitive internal relationships. "It's about knowing the whole business … and helping chose the right method [of communicating a brand's message]," which may or may not be digital.

As for selling their ideas to senior management, which is one of the more difficult tasks facing the panelists and most of the assembled audience, Southwest's Murray offered a personal approach. "Your senior level people consume the internet on some level. Appeal to them on that level. Take your tactics and make it relative to them. Make it real. Find that common language. Early on we struggled with people talking in geek speak. Acronym after acronym makes eyes glaze over. Make it real."

She said that Southwest enjoys the benefit of past successes that can be used to sell through new ideas. "We have many examples that we can point to where we have had wonderful tactical executions online that sold seats. How many seats did we sell? We're all about selling product. I can point to that."

Examples work wonders, Nissan's Kerho agreed, citing a case where the results of a simple paid search effort pleasantly surprised senior management with just how much buzz was generated."

Bringing in outside experts to validate what you're doing internally is another way to raise the digital awareness of senior management, Murphy said. "We brought in agencies, media folks, and people like [iMedia Executive Editor] Brad Berens to talk about how they do it, how they see it, what's on the horizon. We've been talking to [our senior management] for months and these guys came in and made it happens in a few hours of a presentation."

What will the digital landscape look like a few years down the road? Panelists agreed that we'll be seeing more integration between the online and the traditional teams, as well as better harnessing of brands' customer databases and more involved customer relationship management.

As the same time, predicting the future is a difficult task. "That's what keeps me up at night," said Murphy. "What will the organization look like two years from now. I don't know."

In any case, Southwest's Murray predicted that further integration will ultimately require that everyone sitting at the table will have to "be smart about everybody else's piece of the pie."

Masha Geller is iMedia's editor-at-large. Read full bio.

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