Vast majority of marketers plan to increase their investment into data-driven marketing – study
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92% of marketers expect data to increase its contribution to their marketing efforts in the coming years, while more than 80% say data currently plays an important role for them.
The study was conducted by Global DMA, an alliance of 27 independent marketing associations around the world, and Winterberry Group, a US based research and strategic consulting firm. It surveyed more than 3000 advertisers, marketers, service providers and technology developers across 17 countries, including 612 respondents from Australia.
Australian respondents cited two primary motives that guided their data-driven marketing agendas:
- The aim to improve value from marketing investments, and
- being more ‘customer-centric’.
The most significant barrier for Australian respondents was limited marketing budgets.
Australian marketers struggle with slightly less regulatory burden than the global average, benchmarking these barriers at 2.81 on a 1-to-5 scale, compared with 2.94 globally.
Australian marketers’ highest investment priorities in the short term are:
- Data modelling and analytics skill sets, and
- staff with technology know-how.
Global insights from the study included:
- 77% of respondents have confidence in data-driven marketing and advertising’s future growth prospects. Those from emerging markets including India, Brazil and South Africa were most optimistic,
- 63% increased their spend on data-driven marketing and advertising in the last year,
- 74% expect budgets to rise again over the next year, and
- 53% named one of their most important factors driving data-related investments as ‘a demand to deliver more relevant communications/be more “customer-centric”’.
Respondents noted that the following five promotional channels captured the most new or expanded marketing budget over the last year:
- Website/ecommerce content,
- social media,
- mobile,
- paid search engine marketing, and
- online display advertising.
Winterberry Group managing director Jonathan Margulies said:
“While we hear often about the contrasts that distinguish markets around the world, our research revealed one universal constant: data matters – and it matters a lot. Across all of the 17 nations that were part of our analysis, we found that practitioners rely heavily on information to support a range of business objectives, ultimately supporting both marketing and consumer interests.”
The results of the study are published in Global DMA’s new report, ‘The Global Review of Data-Driven Marketing and Advertising’.