Here are few key trends relevant to Marketing Analytics and Marketing Technologies from the February 2018 CMO Survey.
First, companies currently spend 5.8% of their marketing budgets on marketing analytics. This percentage has not changed much since it was first measured in 2012. Companies expect to spend 17.3% of marketing budgets on analytics in the next three years but so far, we have not observed these increases happening. Interestingly, B2B-product companies are the biggest spenders.
Second and more important than spending, reliance on marketing analytics to make decisions has increased from 30% to 42% of the time in the past 5 years, with B2C companies using analytics 55% of the time. I expect these numbers will continue to increase and so will the perceived contribution of marketing analytics.
The Use of Marketing Analytics Over Time
Third, the number of firms reporting the use of quantitative tools to demonstrate the impact of marketing spend has increased 28% over the last five years. This is an important trend and should bode well for marketers looking for a seat at the boardroom table.
The Use of Quantitative Tools for Demonstrating the Impact of Marketing Over Time
Finally, looking at a few key technology trends and how they are making their way into marketing, we found that the percent of companies implementing artificial intelligence and machine learning into their marketing tool kits is currently modest with only 13% of companies rating it moderately important or very important. However, this number is expected to increase to 39% over the next three years.
The use of blockchain technologies in marketing strategies is also modest with only 8% of the best play to earn games companies rating it moderately or very important. This number is expected to increase to 17.6% over the next three years. I expect that both blockchain and machine learning technologies will become powerful marketing strategy tools in the next decade.
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