Increasing conversion rates is a top digital priority for 47% of marketers in 2014, according to a recent report by ExactTarget.
The survey of over 2,500 global marketers found that increasing/improving brand awareness (46% of respondents) and collecting/measuring/using behavior-based data (29%) are also major digital marketing to-dos in the year ahead.
Acquiring new subscribers (28% of respondents) and improving channels (24%) were the next most commonly cited priorities.
Below, additional key findings from the survey.
Digital Budgets on the Rise
- 98% of marketers surveyed plan to increase or maintain their digital marketing budgets for 2014; only 2% plan to decrease their budgets.
- The five top areas where marketers plan to increase digital spend in 2014 are data and analytics (61% plan to increase), marketing automation (61%), email marketing (58%), social media marketing (57%), and content management (57%).
Measures of Success
The top three metrics that marketers will use to judge digital success in the year ahead are conversion rates (67% of respondents), engagement rates (64%), and return on investment (61%).
- 68% of marketers surveyed say email marketing is core to their business.
- 88% believe that email marketing does or will produce ROI.
- 41% of respondents say 31-50% of subscribers open their emails via a mobile device, and 24% report that their emails are opened on a mobile device more than 51% of the time.
Social Media
- Just 34% of marketers surveyed say they are seeing ROI from social media marketing, but 52% believe their social media efforts will eventually produce ROI.
- Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn were the most popular social channels among respondents in 2013.
- Google+ has the highest planned adoption rate in 2014 (18% of respondents plan to introduce).
About the research: The report was based on data from a survey of 2,651 global marketers conducted between October and November 2013.
