Taking ownership of digital marketing technology helps CMOs improve business and marketing performance, according to a new study from the CMO Council and Tealium.
"Most CMOs are unaware of how many digital marketing solutions they are using, and a majority have not defined a coherent and comprehensive marketing technology strategy or a path forward," said Tracy Hansen, CMO of Tealium, in a statement. "Embracing a unified marketing model generates measurable ROI and improved economics; category innovators and best-practice leaders prove this belief time and again."
The report, "Quantify How Well You Unify," which is based on a third-quarter survey of 150 senior marketers in North America, found that 42 percent of CMOs who own their marketing technology strategy see greater business impact than those who do not.
When CMOs have a formal roadmap for digital marketing technology acquisition, integration and data unification, their entire organization benefits. According to the analysis, those with a documented strategy contribute more to overall revenue and value creation. Half (50 percent) are able to achieve more targeted, efficient and relevant customer engagements, and 39 percent achieve greater return and accountability of marketing spending.
CMOs who manage and integrate technology are achieving measurable business results. Almost one-third (30 percent) of CMOs who said they manage and integrate technology extremely well or pretty well are seeing tangible business value, with 51 percent of those achieving greater revenue contributions. Additionally, 59 percent of CMOs who integrate a technology strategy within their overall marketing strategy reported achieving more targeted, efficient and relevant customer engagements.
The study noted that while technology is now an essential part of the modern marketing strategy, the rapid increase in technology options is causing problems; particularly with applications and customer data, which are more fragmented than ever. For example, 54 percent of CMOs said the No. 1 challenge they face relative to the use of new marketing technologies is integrating and centralizing increasingly fragmented data.
These challenges create the need for "master planning" while collecting and analyzing customer-centric data sourced from websites, social networks, mobile apps, online customer communities and other interactive channels. However, fewer than half (44 percent) of respondents said they have a formal marketing technology strategy and program to further business goals; just 16 percent said their marketing technology strategy is tightly aligned to the business strategy; and a mere 3 percent said they are doing extremely well at integrating marketing technologies across functions. But the finding that was particularly shocking is that 54 percent of marketers are not sure whether their marketing technology investments are producing tangible business value.
"While 67 percent of survey respondents believe new marketing technologies are essential or very important to overall marketing group performance and effectiveness, they are being held back by technology overload, too many data sources, and lack of strategic application and integration of disparate point solutions and data," said Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council."
For more:
-See this CMO Council report
Related stories:
Study: Even though B2B buyers purchase and research online, most not satisfied with brand websites
MPB2B: B2B marketers can be the most effective change agents at their companies
B2B marketers challenged with creating customer-centric organizations
How to choose the best predictive lead scoring vendor for your company
CMO Council issues call to arms