Online marketers flying blind

Mark Freidin

11th Feb 2010

Despite spending increases, online marketers still flying blind, Coremetrics study finds

Melbourne, 11 February 2010 – A new Coremetrics study, “The Face of the New Marketer,” finds that while most marketers report a desire to use online data to personalise their marketing efforts and deliver tailored offers to their customers, their current technology use does not support this goal. Furthermore, there is a marked discrepancy between marketers’ need to manage metrics and their confidence in the accuracy of the data.

75% of the 360 marketers surveyed report that using various online tools for personalisation is a priority and 81% claim that it’s very important for them to increase visitor value through compelling product and content offerings. Yet only half report they currently use online personalisation tools (51%).

Kevin Mackin, Coremetrics’ General Manager for Australia and New Zealand, elaborates, “This global survey shows that many marketers are struggling to derive real value from their online marketing tools. They understand the need to personalise messages for target audiences – they just don’t know how to go about it. This is surprising given just how critical tailored marketing efforts are becoming in competitive markets.”

While spending on online marketing efforts has increased, most marketers lack confidence that they are using the right metrics to gauge marketing success and value. When asked how they would evaluate marketing success at the end of 2009, nearly half (47%) said: “meeting our key performance indicators.” However, well over half of marketers (62%) claim they are not confident they are tracking the right metrics for online marketing performance—a significant discrepancy.

Other important findings in “The Face of the New Marketer” include:

The two top challenges facing marketers are:

– Obtaining an integrated view of customers across online marketing touch points (45%)

– Interpreting the resulting data (41%)

The three areas that have seen the biggest spending increase this year are:

– Online marketing (69%)

– Generating online business (56%)

– Web 2.0 (55%)

Marketing has always been viewed as critical to the organisation. Two-thirds of marketers (67%) indicated that marketing has always been viewed as critical in their organisation—only 19% say that marketing is seen as discretionary.

The three most commonly used forms of online marketing are:

– Email marketing (87%)

– Display advertising (86%)

– Paid search (69%)

The three most commonly used marketing measurement tools are:

– Individual online marketing campaign performance (77%)

– Online customer behavior—per visit/session (76%)

– Display advertising performance based on impressions (69%)

Collaboration is important and could be easier if barriers are removed. 97% of marketers say it is important for their organisation to collaborate to better target customers. However, only about half indicate that this is an easy process. The biggest barriers to collaboration are:

– Organisational structure (47%)

– Control issues (38%)

– Decision making procedures (33%)

– And poor communication (33%)

Methodology

This research was conducted by Bloomberg BusinessWeek Research Services in conjunction with Coremetrics. The research was fielded in September and October 2009 to determine the attitudes and opinions of marketing executives with regard to the current online marketing landscape. The study is based on a global survey of 361 interviews with senior marketing executives.

About Coremetrics

Coremetrics is the leader in marketing optimisation. Its products help businesses relentlessly optimise their marketing programs to make the best offer, every time, anywhere, automatically. More than 2,100 online brands globally use Coremetrics’ Software as a Service (SaaS) to optimise their online marketing. Coremetrics’ integrated marketing optimisation solutions include real-time personalised recommendations, email targeting, display ad targeting across leading ad networks, and search engine bid management. The company’s solutions are delivered on the only online analytics platform designed to anticipate the needs of every customer, automate marketing decisions in real time, and syndicate information across all customer channels. The company is privately held with funding from Accel Partners, FTV Capital, Highland Capital Partners, and W Capital Partners, and is headquartered in San Mateo, California.

To learn more about Coremetrics, visit www.coremetrics.com.au or call (Aus) 1800 69 CORE or (NZ) 0800 69 CORE.

Coremetrics has strongly supported online privacy since its inception. To learn more, visit www.coremetrics.com/privacy .

Photo credit: Prozac1