Why Return on Relationships Is the New ROI ~via Brad Godwin
I met Brad over 12 years ago thanks to my association with an amazing nonprofit in Bentonville, AR… Champions for Kids.
ROR was never meant to replace ROI… it enhances and adds to it. Why? Because ROI is often tied to a specific timeframe or transaction, while ROR creates a halo effect that extends far beyond the immediate result. Two projects may deliver the same ROI, but the one built on stronger relationships creates trust, loyalty, advocacy, and long-term value that continues paying dividends long after the numbers are reported.
The brands that win won’t simply know how to target people… they’ll know how to understand and care about them. Because the conversation needs to shift from a Targeting mindset in favor of a Matchmaking mentality… now more than ever before. -Ted
Years ago, reading “Why We Buy” by Paco Underhill changed the way I thought about retail and human behavior.
It forced me to realize something simple but powerful: people are rarely making purely rational decisions. They’re responding to emotion, friction, environment, trust, memory, context, and how a brand or experience makes them feel in a moment.
The best retailers, marketers, and merchants have always understood psychology better than they understood media plans.
Long before commerce media networks, AI, or retail data ecosystems, Paco was studying how humans actually move, pause, discover, hesitate, and connect inside physical spaces. He understood that behavior is the strategy.
Around that same time, I remember first hearing Ted Rubin talk about ROR — Return on Relationships. That idea has stayed with me ever since.
Not because it sounded better than ROI.
Because it actually explained why ROI happens.
Relationships create trust.
Trust creates attention.
Attention creates action.
Action creates business outcomes.
That thinking has shaped so much of how I view partnerships, commerce experiences, retail media, and even leadership today.
I wrote this article for P2PI because I believe we are entering a moment where brands have to stop thinking only about transactional efficiency and start asking a deeper question:
Are we building systems that optimize clicks… or experiences that make humans feel understood?
The brands that win the next decade won’t just have the best targeting.
They’ll have the best understanding of people. See the article in the comments below.
Let's say it is Saturday morning, and you want to treat yourself. Where are you headed?
I'm willing to bet it's not even a decision. You're going to get coffee from your spot. You know the one. The chairs are comfy and plentiful, they're somehow always playing your favorite songs and the baristas even remember your name.
The coffee is great, of course — but even more than that, the experience is consistent and pleasurable every single visit.
I'm sure new coffee shops open in your city all the time. Even so, you still choose "your" spot over and over. That's because we make purchasing decisions based on relationships.
So, if that's how it works with your favorite coffee shop, why would it be any different in the world of marketing?
Spoiler alert — it isn't. In the world of marketing, where we're inundated with dozens of decisions every day, what we decide on ultimately comes down to relationships.
If there are always going to be flashy new capabilities from tech companies, vendors and retail media networks (RMNs), how do you get someone to choose to work with you again and again? It's all about the experience you provide and the relationship you have. That's why making it a priority to invest in your relationships is one of the most important things you can do as a marketer.
ROI, Make Room For ROR
These days, it feels like everyone is focused solely on return on investment (ROI) or some form of return on ad spend (ROAS). And listen, I understand why. With shrinking budgets and increasing demands, the pressure has never been higher to prove a strong ROI — to definitively show that you're moving dollars and driving incremental sales.
No one is saying these things aren't important. But in a world where AI is evolving every day, those real human relationships become even more important.
Brands and retailers have endless options for vendors and partners. At the end of the day, people buy from people they like and trust (whether you're talking about a latte or a product launch). It's as simple as that. We're all just humans, wired for connection and relationships. So ultimately, caring as much about return on relationships (ROR) as you do ROI is what will drive your business forward long-term.
When you focus on ROR, sometimes you may have to do things in your role that might not make explicit, quantifiable sense in terms of performance. It will, however, grow relational equity and trust.
It’s important that you do those things to build a relationship that makes your partners (retail, RMN or other CPGs) want to collaborate again. Just like every coffee you buy isn't based solely on price, working with a partner isn't solely about moving units. It's also about providing an enjoyable experience for the people involved — the people who are going to decide whether the partnership continues.
Building Trust
Focusing on ROR means moving away from viewing every single interaction through a lens of profitability and return. Instead, shift to a long-term vision focused on growing relational equity — on building the kind of trust that makes someone choose to work with you over and over again. The great news is that taking the dedicated time to build these meaningful relationships in the long term will ultimately drive more revenue than any one short-term action.
A small caveat: I'm not saying that driving revenue should be your primary motivation for building relationships. Actually, the opposite is true, or all of this falls out the window. You have to invest in relationships because you genuinely care — because it's the heart at the center of your work.
My point is that by focusing on relationships, revenue and profitability ultimately follow behind. It's a win-win: Focus on genuinely serving people to the best of your ability, and your future is going to be all the better for it.
And yes, of course, you still need to deliver value in whatever you're doing. But the truth is, there's always going to be a shiny new toy that's technically better or faster than what you offer. That's where relationships can set you apart and keep you top of mind in a pool of talent.
Poet Maya Angelou stated: "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." In the shopper marketing world, people will forget exactly how many dollars you drove or units you moved. But they'll remember how it felt to work with you. How easy and enjoyable the process was, how you overdelivered and made the experience fun.
In a world of AI, everyone just wants to feel known by another person. And that relationship is what's going to bring them back again and again.
