Based on a recent study made by Blank Ink, Marketing Technology will continue to play a key role in the future. Marketing technology is no longer just the remit of a handful of enthusiastic geeks. It is one of the core engines making the entire marketing team smarter, efficient, and more connected.
The study shows marketers’ top priorities are a customer-centric focus (79%), brand management (70%), reporting and insight (61%), marketing technology (56%), and omni-channel/cross-channel promotions (50%).
The data reveals that 3 out of the top 5 barriers are Marketing technology infrastructure related. Nearly half (46%) indicated that – access to more advanced analytics and the insight that brings to make smarter decisions – is the main obstacle, the inability to access more data (31%) and improvement of the marketing technology stack (28%) were also named as top barriers to success.
Marketers struggle to measure Marketing ROI. Measuring marketing’s revenue, profit, and ROI rank in the top 5 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that C-level management require. Yet those KPIs also represent some of the largest reporting gaps marketing can currently deliver. For example, measuring Marketing ROI is the 4th most important KPI that C-level management requires, with a -26% gap in the ability to report.
What are marketers looking to overcome these challenges? Marketers are looking to purchase business intelligence reporting tools (60%), marketing automation/campaign management (57%), and customer interaction technology (57%) in 2016.
Management of the marketing technology stack most often falls under Marketing Ops (53%). Of the companies with a Marketing Ops team to help manage their Marketing Technology stack, nearly 53% have current staff levels of 5 employees or less.
Source: BlackInk
Survey responders: The majority of responders represented the top 2000 largest companies in the United States by annualized revenue. Nearly 55% of the responders have over $5 billion in revenue, and represent approximately 30 different industry segments. Their collective marketing budget is well over $5B, including program and labor costs.