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Using Marketing Analytics: I Do, Therefore, I Think
May 19, 2012
I recently reported that The CMO Survey found companies expect to increase the marketing analytics portion of their marketing budgets by 60% from 5.7% to 9.1% in the next three years. This is a monumental increase especially given that marketing budgets overall have grown only 8.3% over the last two years. While impressive, the true mark of whether marketing analytics is going live up to its expected role as a critical strategic asset cannot be measured by spending. Instead, we have to consider how marketing analytics affects what managers do and think and how well they perform.
To gauge this impact, the February 2012 CMO Survey asked top marketers to answer this question: “In what percent of your projects does your company use available or requested market analytics before a decision is made?” The average score was 37.2% (95% confidence interval: 31.5%-43%). This means that 62.8% of the time, managers are not using marketing analytics! By this measure, marketing analytics must do more. If not, its funders will place bets on other strategic weapons they believe will allow the company to serve customers better and to pull ahead of competitors.
Company Use of Marketing Analytics in Decision Making
Which firms are using marketing analytics? B2B-Services companies report the lowest levels (31.4%), followed by B2C-Services (36.9%) and B2B-Product companies (37.2%). B2C-product companies dominate this metric (45.3%). Companies with 10% or more of their sales coming from the internet use marketing analytics to drive 46.3% of their decisions, while companies with less than 10% use marketing analytics only 34% of the time.
