The modern technology, and especially digital technology like e-mail, websites, mobile and social media, are a blessing for marketers. Not ever before were they able to gather so much data on what they do. But, this also comes with a danger. The flood of data is large, marketers are awash in data. Marketing analytics is the way to take control over this flood. In the 2013 Marketing Analytics Benchmark Report
Over 1.100 marketers are surveyed for this research. It provides insight into analytics for all kinds of marketing channels.
According to Marketingssherpa the surveyed marketers provided some interesting insights, and also highlighted areas where marketers could improve in taking advantage of this valuable marketing asset.
The availability of marketing analytics data is promising with 79% reporting having average, significant and even vast amounts of client interaction data to analyze. Only 3% reported having no analytics data at all. An overwhelming majority — 97% — of marketers have some amount of marketing analytics data to work with.
Unfortunately, the tag team challenge of time and resources are the two biggest reported pain points to marketers actually leveraging that data to gain insights into the effectiveness of marketing programs. Less than 50% of surveyed marketers are able to leverage this data, with 21% reporting a lack of resources and 20% citing time as the top two challenges to taking advantage of marketing analytics.
Other findings from this research include:
- Generating reports is a more common analytic activity than gaining insights — 48% of marketers are creating custom reports, but only 27% add custom variables to analytics platforms to glean deeper insights into the data
- Engagement rate metrics are tracked more often than revenue-based metrics — 50% or more surveyed marketers tracking KPIs such as open rate, clickthrough rate, unsubscribe rate and deliverability; only 28% report tracking ROI
- 66% of surveyed marketers report acting on data to improve marketing performance is the most important objective for marketing analytics in 2013
- 53% report expecting to increase marketing analytics investment in 2013
These survey results paint a picture illustrating marketers do have marketing analytics data, and they are taking advantage of that asset.
At the same time, they face familiar challenges in time and resources. Beyond those challenges, marketers are not fully taking advantage of marketing analytics to really drill down into customer behavior for deeper insights or impact on revenue. The key takeaway is marketers are planning on spending more money and effort on improving marketing analytics activity in 2013.
The full whitepaper can be downloaded here. Download your free excerpt
