Nearly 70% of marketing executives plan to spend more on marketing technology in 2018

Search marketing platform Conductor surveyed 500 marketing executives to gain insight into their martech strategy for the coming year.

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According to a survey published by search marketing software platform Conductor, 68 percent of marketing executives say they plan to spend more on marketing technology in 2018. Thirty percent of the survey respondents said they will be spending anywhere from 11 percent to 25 percent more than what they are already spending.

Twenty-eight percent of the survey respondents say they are currently spending more than $100,000 on marketing technology platforms. (Four percent said they were spending more than $1 million.)

Conductor’s survey was sent via email to 500 marketing executives during the month of November. The goal was to gain a better understanding of the marketing technology landscape, and where the industry is headed in 2018.

Eighty-four percent of the respondents held CMO, VP or director titles, with the largest share of executives — 29 percent — from B2B organizations. Other organizations represented in the survey included B2C businesses, agencies, publishers and non-profits.

Looking at this year’s martech trends, 80 percent said they introduced at least one to five new marketing technologies in 2017. Eight percent introduced six to 10 new technologies, and two percent introduced anywhere from 11 to 20 new technologies.

As far as how many technologies are currently being used by marketing executives right now, 43 percent of the survey respondents said they were currently using from six to 10 martech solutions, and 28 percent report using more than 10.

The survey included multiple questions covering concerns executives had around their marketing technology, with 56 percent admitting they felt “overwhelmed” by the amount of data available from their martech stacks. When asked about the marketing technology trends they feel most unprepared for in the coming year, 34 percent said AI, 29 percent said VR or AR, 23 percent said voice search, and 11 percent said new social networks.

Respondents were also asked to rank internal challenges they feared may negatively impact their online performance in 2018 — the top concern was “lack of budget,” followed by “not having the right team” and “not having enough time.”

Last on the list of the biggest internal challenges faced by marketing executives was the inability to prove ROI, although 88 percent reported using two or more dashboards or reports to understand their overall marketing performance, and 51 percent claimed it was “easy to get visibility” into their company’s global performance.

The marketing executives said this year’s primary KPIs will be revenue and conversions — a shift from last year, when survey respondents said leads and traffic would serve as their main indicators of success.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Amy Gesenhues
Contributor
Amy Gesenhues was a senior editor for Third Door Media, covering the latest news and updates for Marketing Land, Search Engine Land and MarTech Today. From 2009 to 2012, she was an award-winning syndicated columnist for a number of daily newspapers from New York to Texas. With more than ten years of marketing management experience, she has contributed to a variety of traditional and online publications, including MarketingProfs, SoftwareCEO, and Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. Read more of Amy's articles.

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