The city of Las Vegas was built on hopeful fools dutifully plugging dollar after dollar into machines that clearly advertised not all the money would be returned. Unfortunately, many businesses treat their marketing the same way.

My father took me to Las Vegas as soon as I turned 21. My mother made him. She wanted dad, an accountant well-versed in probability, to educate me on what constitutes a smart bet.

You’ll see signs on the Strip proclaiming 98% pay-out on slots, my father said. That means, over the long run, the casinos will end up with $2 of every $100 you play with.

And dad was right. Every bet in a casino is designed this way. There aren’t even any 50-50 bets, not even in craps or roulette. Every dollar you wager, over the long run, you will lose a portion of it. Eventually, you’ll lose it all.

This is essentially what businesses do if they can’t empirically link their efforts in marketing and advertising with revenue.

Your marketing is supposed to make you money. To paraphrase marketing guru Seth Godin, your marketing should work like a sale on dollar bills.

Godin puts the question this way: If you have a marketing program that brings in more than $1 of revenue for every dollar spent, how much should you spend on it?

The correct answer is everything you have. Mortgage the house, if you must. If your marketing works like any other investment, don’t short-change the budget for it — go big.

This is the approach that WELD brings to digital marketing. It’s the reason we stress the use of web analytics and the value of having a firm on retainer, monitoring the effectiveness of your campaigns on a day-to-day basis. That way, we quickly drop losing bets or move all-in when the cards are sure winners.

How about your organization? Is your marketing strategic and agile, so as to maximize return on investment? Or are you marketing with one-armed bandits?