More and more brands grasp the importance of integrated digital marketing strategies today,yet struggle with complicated technology, decentralized data and expenses, according to a survey by IgnitionOne.
The wide use of Internet, social and mobile today pushes more and more brands to engage consumers with an integrated digital marketing approach, according to the Integrated Marketing Survey 2013 by IgnitionOne.
The survey reveals that more than 9 out of 10 brands’ marketing departments have been working closer with IT to achieve marketing goals in the past two years. Although 49 percent of the companies surveyed still have separate media channel owners, they communicate often and share goals with their media management partners.
The awareness of integrated marketing is further strengthened, as close to half of these brands are managing their marketing channels in-house.
A Long Way to Go Despite the Growth
Nevertheless, 23 percent of respondents use a mix of external providers; 20 percent turn to a combination of in-house and external service providers to manage their channels. This indicates that more than 40 percent of brands haven’t yet embraced integrated digital marketing, the survey says. These two scenarios prevent marketers from accumulating their attribution data into a single centralized platform in order to attain accurate insights.
Mobile and Social Advertisings are Biggest Trends
Digital marketing is expected to gain momentum throughout 2014, as 96 percent of the brands surveyed said that they will increase digital marketing budget allocation over the following 12 months. Among major Internet, social and mobile channels, nearly 40 percent of markers will invest more in mobile display and mobile ads, respectively. Thirty-two percent of respondents will put more dollars in Facebook Exchange (FBX), a method of retargeting with Facebook ads through real-time bidding. By contrast, a mere 11 percent of the organizations surveyed plan to increase their budget in website personalization.
Brands Should Harness a Cross-Channel Attribution Model
In order to efficiently measure digital marketing successes, marketers should adopt a cross-channel attribution model, according to the survey. However, only 18 percent of the brands surveyed said they use sophisticated cross-channel attribution strategy to measure their digital marketing efforts.
Close to 60 percent of respondents still stick to last-click attribution, while 24 percent don’t even track how paid media affect and interact with each other.
Technology and Disparate Data are Top Challenges
The effectiveness and efficiencies of integrated digital marketing aside, only six percent of respondents admitted that their digital strategies were already integrated. Top challenges that marketers face include:
IgnitionOne surveyed marketers from North America (56 percent), South and Latin America (23 percent), and Europe (12 percent). You can find more insights from the full version here.
