The Transformation of Digital Marketing and Advertising BRANDS AND AGENCIES IDENTIFY THE PERFORMANCE FUTURE SPONSORED BY What’s on the Minds of Digital Marketers? The era of digital transformation in marketing is hardly over. What’s a marketer to do? Data in all its forms has become the driving force behind To find out what’s on the minds of digital marketers right now, marketing innovation. The tools in the tech stack have become Adweek Branded, in association with Salesforce, conducted an critical competitive differentiators, as a marketer’s ability to exclusive survey of more than 250 brand and agency marketers. organize, access and derive insights from data is what can give They were asked about their strategic priorities for digital their brands the advantage they need. marketing, the challenges they are facing, their spending on At the same time, customers’ expectations are changing rapidly. technology and where they believed their companies were using They expect a lot more from the companies they do business with. their marketing stacks to create a competitive advantage. Their shopping journeys now take place across a plethora of digital The results boiled down to five key trends: and real-world channels, and at each step along the way, they want information and offers that are personalized, appropriate and speak THE CHALLENGE OF THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY to their unique needs at a particular moment. As customers demand more personalized and seamless It’s no wonder that the most recent Salesforce “State of the experiences, the traditional, predictable marketing funnel of Connected Customer” report found that 84% of customers believe awareness, consideration, intent and purchase is much less that the experience a company provides is as important as its valid. With the channels available to them, consumers go on products and services. their own unique journeys, and marketing data needs to be able to identify where they are and what their current needs are. said that measuring campaign effectiveness is what is on their Throughout the survey, respondents cited the importance of mind right now. And conversions and leads are two of the three getting a richer, clearer view of the customer journey; in fact, most common metrics being used by marketers right now. it bubbled to the top of the list of their most pressing concerns right now. At the same time, they acknowledged the need to be BUILDING AN EFFECTIVE able to engage with customer and prospects more effectively in INFRASTRUCTURE FOR TRANSFORMATION real time. Digital transformation necessitates a more advanced marketing tech stack. Real-time marketing requires organizations to break A RENEWED AND GROWING down the silos from their marketing data and put in place the FOCUS ON PERFORMANCE technology that can organize customer data, provide insights Building brand equity, maintaining brand reputation and creating into the customer journey and transform measurement into a loyalty certainly remain important, but there is a growing tool that can deliver actionable results. emphasis for marketing to generate leads and drive conversions. This is a shift that has been going on for some time and has THE CDP IS CRITICAL certainly been amplified by the economic uncertainties caused by Central to the forward-looking tech stack is implementing a the Covid pandemic. Asked about their marketing mix, marketers customer data platform (CDP), but many organizations look at in the survey tipped the scale toward performance goals and it as part of their down-the-road infrastructure. But those with a indicated they will move more in that direction over the coming CDP already in place feel they are much better positioned than year. Simply put, keeping the pipeline full has become a huge their competitors across all aspects of digital marketing. They marketing priority. also view themselves as better able to execute many advanced digital marketing tactics, such as targeting customers in real time. THE NEED FOR AND IMPORTANCE Clearly, as digital marketing continues through this period of OF ACCURATE MEASUREMENT disruption—pushed by everything from Covid-driven shifts in Marketers must generate proof of performance. As data-driven consumer behavior to the cookie-less future—organizations need tactics increasingly drive marketing success, identifying and to set themselves up with the strategies, skills and technologies tracking the KPIs that gauge that success becomes more to succeed. See the charts on the following pages for more of the important. It’s little surprise that respondents overwhelmingly survey’s findings. METHODOLOGY The findings in this report are based on an exclusive online survey of 260 marketers completed in September 2020 by Adweek. The goal was to find out what’s important to digital marketers right now. All respondents were involved in marketing for a brand or agency. Representatives of ad tech and marketing tech vendors were screened from the results. WHAT ONE THING COULD YOU DO RIGHT NOW TO MAKE YOUR DIGITAL MARKETING PROGRAMS MORE EFFECTIVE? Tracking the Create a clearer view of the individual customer journey 23% customer Analyze the performance of every investment 17% journey Perfect our data 15% measurement capabilities As consumers demand greater Manage our customer data personalization—as well as greater more effectively 11% privacy—marketers need a clearer window into the individual customer Make our outreach more 10% journey, identifying where someone personalized is and what their intent is. Asked to Improve our overall 7% identify the one thing they could do customer experience right now to improve their digital Generate a single, accurate 7% marketing’s effectiveness, nearly identity for customers a quarter of survey respondents Eliminate wasted ad spend by 6% (23%) chose creating a clearer view detecting fraudulent ad activity of the customer journey. Streamline our marketing tech and ad tech stack 5% WHAT IS TOP OF MIND FOR YOU RIGHT NOW AS A MARKETER/ADVERTISER? Measurement Measuring the effectiveness of digital marketing and advertising 62% is top of mind Selecting the right advertising channel mix 39% As marketers may be under greater Creating personalized 35% pressure than ever to justify their experiences for customers spending and demonstrate campaign Keeping up with technology solutions 29% results and advertising effectiveness, for digital marketing/advertising metrics and measurement get a lot Real-time insights 26% of their attention. Over six out of 10 respondents said that measuring the Collecting and managing 25% effectiveness of digital marketing and customer data ad campaigns was top-of-mind for Managing advertising/ 23% them, even the other top responses— marketing budgets selecting the right advertising Engaging with customers 19% mix and creating personalized in real-time experiences—point to the need for Managing and establishing a single 17% robust measurement. source of truth for customer identity Handling data privacy and consent/ regulatory environment 9% Other 2% HOW DOES YOUR ORGANIZATION’S MARKETING A greater MIX BALANCE BETWEEN BRANDING (I.E. BRAND EQUITY, REPUTATION, LOYALTY, ETC.) focus on AND PERFORMANCE MARKETING (I.E. LEAD GENERATION, CONVERSIONS) TODAY? performance Branding Performance In 2020, everyone is a performance marketer. More robust measurement 57 and the ability to track specific campaign results often means that performance tactics—such as lead generation—are growing in importance. That doesn’t spell the end of typical HOW DO YOU ANTICIPATE YOUR ORGANIZATION’S branding actions like building brand MARKETING MIX WILL BALANCE BETWEEN equity, which remain critical. But it BRANDING AND PERFORMANCE MARKETING could mean that marketers are more ONE YEAR FROM NOW? cognizant that the programs they execute ultimately need to fill their Branding Performance companies’ sales pipelines. In the survey, most marketers see their strategies leaning toward performance 60 today, with performance’s importance increasing in the near future. HOW WILL YOUR ADVERTISING SPEND CHANGE ACROSS THE FOLLOWING AREAS OVER THE NEXT 12 MONTHS? 2% Digital 16% 19% 53% 10% advertising budget 2% Search 8% 30% 53% 7% 2% Out with Facebook/Instagram 11% 29% 48% 10% 4% the old… Digital video (including 48% 14% YouTube) 7% 27% As marketing budgets face 1% increasing scrutiny, spending on Other social (LinkedIn, 10% 45% 39% 5% Twitter, etc. digital tactics will grow or remain constant. In fact, even with the 4% current economic uncertainty, Digital display 15% 41% 36% 4% 63% of respondents expect 3% their overall digital ad budgets Email 15% 40% 34% 8% to increase over the next year, 3% with more money earmarked for Overall 26% 33% 34% channels like social and digital advertising budget 4% video. But more traditional “linear” channels—such as print, direct Connected TV 11% 11% 38% 31% 9% mail and linear TV— are facing sizable cutbacks. Direct mail 17% 30% 42% 9% 2% Linear TV 17% 26% 50% 6% 1% 4% Print 23% 41% 31% 1% Decrease significantly Decrease Stay the same Increase Increase significantly WHICH TYPES OF METRICS DO YOU USE TO MEASURE THE SUCCESS OF YOUR DIGITAL MARKETING AND ADVERTISING? Measuring Conversions 79% success Impressions (e.g., web traffic) 62% As marketers become more focused on performance metrics, Lead generation 57% they are keeping a close eye on the sales pipeline in their ROI per channel 52% measurement of campaign success. Asked to identify the New customer acquisition 50% metrics they currently use for their digital campaigns, Ecommerce sales