Survey: Marketers see customer satisfaction as primary IT driver

Dayton, Ohio - Nearly two-thirds (62%) of 400 digital marketers surveyed view improving customer satisfaction as the top reason to invest more in technology. Becoming more customer-centric is a top-two priority for 49% of respondent organizations.



According to “Enterprise Priorities in Digital Marketing,” a survey from Teradata and Econsultancy, nearly 50% of organizations cite full integration with other technologies as their top criterion for new technology adoption. In addition, 32% of enterprises consider personalization a top priority, although fewer than 20% are executing on it real-time in day-to-day business. Still, 47% acknowledge that improving the customer experience is the top benefit of personalization programs.



Looking ahead, by 2019, the average investment in digital marketing will be approximately 40% of companies’ total marketing expenditure, up from about 25% today. Mobile will continue to be an area of emphasis, with 34% of marketing leaders saying they plan a significant increase for 2015. Content marketing and display advertising round out the top three planned areas of increase. At the other end of the spectrum, paid search budgets will continue growing but incrementally, with 37% planning some increase, but only 14% predicting a significant one.



More than half (51%) of companies are focused on personalizing the customer lifecycle (e.g., key phases of the purchase process), while only 14% report doing no personalization whatsoever. And digital advertising at 17% is on average the largest single channel budget, followed closely by search (16%) and content (15%). Digital advertising also has the largest variation in spending.