Marketers are confident in the practice of data-driven marketing (DDM) and its prospects for future growth with nearly three-quarters of DMA/Winterberry Group’s Quarterly Business Report (QBR) survey respondents expressing confidence in the industry’s growth. Nearly half of the respondents expressed strong confidence in DDM’s prospects. Almost 50% of the respondents said they expected to continue growing DDM expenditures while 48% expected to maintain current levels of spending. Nearly 45% of panellists reported that their DDM-generated revenues activities grew in Q1 2015 compared to the previous quarter, while 41.4% said their related revenue remained constant.
The survey’s respondents agreed that it’s not the tools themselves that are of prime importance, but the data that powers their utilization. Nearly 65% indicated “aggregating and integrating disparate data sources” is a high priority for their organisation. At the same time, only 40% indicated that their organisation does a good job of training internal teams about new technology. This disparity points to a need for the alignment of technological tools and the skill sets needed to implement them.
Data-driven marketers seem to have just begun testing mobile and location-based technologies as 60.4% of respondents said they were using them, though only few of them called these tools mission-critical. The Quarterly Business Report is based on data from an online survey of DMA members, deployed in April 2015. Quarterly Business Report Q1 2015 survey data was comprised of the responses of 293 survey respondents, including 166 marketers and 127 marketing services, including agency services, and technology providers.
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