Spending Trends in Data-Driven Marketing and Advertising

Data’s role will expand considerably more important in the future, according to more than three-quarters of marketers, advertisers, service providers, technologists and publishers surveyed by the Winterberry Group and the GlobalDMA across 17 markets.

The study find broad agreement across those markets that the value of data-driven marketing and advertising (DDMA) is growing, and almost three-quarters expect to increase their spending on DDMA next year.

Looking at expected changes in spending on DDMA channels over the next year (measured on a 5-point scale where 1 represents a significant likely decrease and 5 a significant likely increase), the study found that the channels set for the largest increases in data-driven spend are:

  • Mobile apps, messaging and user experience — 4.15;
  • Social media engagement (apps, gamification, customer service, etc.) — 4.11; and
  • Website/e-commerce (content and user experience) — 4.06.

The only channel not tabbed for an increase in data-driven spending is direct mail, for which spending should remain flat (2.99 average).

And while the spending outlook for teleservices/contact centers (3.23) and addressable TV (3.26) is more modest, those channels also see a small rise in data-driven spending.

Also worth noting is that for almost all of the channels identified, expectations for spending next year are greater than reported spending increases over the past year, another indication that this remains a growing field.

In many cases, spending expectations are following performance trends.

For example, the performance of mobile apps, messaging and user experience saw the largest reported improvement over last year, with website/e-commerce and digital display advertising performances also among those seeing the largest gains.

Meanwhile, the campaign execution functions tabbed for the greatest spending hikes next year are:

  • Digital campaign execution — 4.02;
  • Audience analytics, measurement and attribution — 4.01; and
  • Data/database management (CRM and *DMP* technology) — 3.99.

Looking at the factors most responsible for driving investments in data-driven marketing and advertising, respondents were most apt to point to demands to deliver more relevant communications to customers and be more “customer-centric” (52.7%) and a desire to maximize effectiveness and efficiency of marketing investments (49.3%).

It is notable that the bisects inhibitor to investments in DDMA is a limited availability of the necessary budget (47.1%) rather than a poor understanding of DDMA and its contribution (30.4%).

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