Having a formal roadmap for the acquisition, integration, and data unification of digital marketing technology could lead to improved business and marketing performance, according to a study.
“Quantify How Well You Unify,” published by the CMO Council and Tealium, gauges how much of a hold chief marketers have on their digital marketing strategies and to what degree they’re unifying and extracting value from multiple customer data sources. Some findings include:
- Forty-two percent of CMOs who own their marketing tech strategy have a stronger business impact than CMOs who delegate that power.
- CMOs with a formal strategy contribute more overall revenue and value creation. Half are able to attain more targeted, efficient, and relevant customer engagements, and 39% achieve greater return and accountability of marketing spend.
- CMOs who manage and integrate technology achieve measurable business and operational gains. Thirty percent of CMOs who manage and integrate technology extremely or pretty well see tangible business value. In fact, 51% of this group achieve greater revenue contributions.
- CMOs who integrate their technology strategy as part of their overall marketing plan achieve more personalized customer interactions across channels. Consider the following: 59% of CMOs who boast this strategy report achieving more targeted, efficient, and relevant customer engagements.
As the research shows, there’s an inherent need for master planning when it comes to gathering and analyzing customer-centric data from multiple interactive and self-help channels. To wit:
- Forty-four percent of senior marketers surveyed have a formal marketing tech strategy and program to further their business goals.
- Only 16% of marketers consider their marketing tech strategy to be tightly aligned with their business strategy.
- Just 3% of marketers say that they’re doing extremely well with regards to integrating marketing technologies across functions.
- Fifty-four percent of marketers aren’t sure whether their marketing tech investments are producing tangible business value.
Although technology is an essential part of the modern marketing strategy, the rapid increase of its options is wreaking havoc. The reasoning? Applications and customer data are more fragmented than ever, according to the study.
“While 67 percent of survey respondents believe new marketing technologies are essential or very important to overall marketing group performance and effectiveness, they are being held back by technology overload, too many data sources, and lack of strategic application and integration of disparate point solutions and data,” says Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the of the CMO Council.
