Two-thirds of digital marketing leaders see improving customer satisfaction as top reason for investment in technology, according to new research. The study, from Teradata, surveyed senior digital marketers strategic to assess their priorities for technology investment for 2015 and beyond. Two-thirds (62%) of respondents cited improving customer satisfaction as their top reason for investing in […]
Two-thirds of digital marketing leaders see improving customer satisfaction as top reason for investment in technology, according to new research.
The study, from Teradata, surveyed senior digital marketers strategic to assess their priorities for technology investment for 2015 and beyond.
Two-thirds (62%) of respondents cited improving customer satisfaction as their top reason for investing in more technology. Becoming more customer-centric was found to be a top-two priority for 49% of organisations.
According to the report, which surveyed more than 400 digital marketing leaders at large global enterprises (with 56% having revenues over $3 billion), 86% of enterprise companies are practising some form of personalisation but only 32% view it as a top priority and less than 20% execute it in day-to-day business.
Planned investment in new technologies is led by 36% of companies currently evaluating marketing attribution solutions, with 32% doing so within marketing management systems and 28% in audience management systems.
“Strategic direction is only as powerful as the investment that supports it,” said Volker Wiewer, vice president, Teradata Marketing Applications. “We’ve been talking about personalisation for years. Now, through digital marketing, custom analytics and marketing as a service the appetite is real, and true personalisation is the future. Only a customer-centric strategy that combines technology and data can deliver sustainable opportunities for businesses to drive top-line growth through continuously more personalised data-driven marketing strategies.”
Teradata’s report, “Enterprise Priorities in Digital Marketing,” is available now and is based on a global survey conducted in July by Econsultancy.
A Look Ahead
Teradata’s research also looked at the role that data-driven decisions and investments in digital marketing play in improving customer engagement and building long-term relationships. Investments are trending upward for marketing and advertising as one looks into 2015, but the biggest emphasis will continue to be on digital, and toward personalisation. By 2019, the average investment in digital marketing will be approximately 40% of companies’ total marketing expenditure, up from about 25% today.
• For 2015 digital marketing budgets will increase in mobile, content and display advertising. Mobile will continue to be an area of emphasis, with 34% of marketing leaders saying they plan a significant increase for 2015. Content marketing and display advertising round out the top three planned areas of increase. At the other end of the spectrum, paid search budgets will continue growing but incrementally, with 37% planning some increase, but only 14% predicting a significant one.
• Capabilities that will get the most attention in coming years are segment-level and real-time personalisation. Both are priorities, and immediate beneficiaries of the data and application integration efforts that are under way at so many organisations. More than half (51 percent) of companies are focused on personalising the customer lifecycle (e.g. key phases of the purchase process), while only 14% report doing no personalisation whatsoever.
• Companies expect their digital investment to reach 40-50% of their marketing budget by 2019. Digital advertising at 17% is on average the largest single channel budget, followed closely by search (16%) and content (15%). Digital advertising also has the largest variation in spending.
