Dive Brief:
- Ascend2’s new Marketing Automation Trends report found that 51% of respondents see analytics and reporting as the most useful feature of marketing automation software.
- Nearly two-thirds (63%) of respondents expect to realize benefits from a new marketing automation system within six months.
- Meanshile, 52% of surveyed marketers said that lack of an effective strategy was seen as the main barrier to marketing automation success.
Dive Insight:
"Accountability is top of mind for marketers, and the reason 'analytics and reporting' is the most useful feature of a marketing automation system for 51% of companies surveyed," Todd Lebo, partner and CMO at Ascend2, told Marketing Dive.
Marketers also believe marketing automation will make an immediate impact.
"This is good news for marketers in 2016 – you have time to implement marketing automation and reap the rewards in this calendar year. So don’t delay, start now," he said.
In terms of implementation, the report found 71% of companies use marketing automation in some capacity, and only 6% don’t use the software and have no plans to implement it in the future. And 76% report marketing automation is "very important" to overall marketing performance.
The results of this research illustrate the importance of martech in marketers’ day-to-day activities. In recent years martech has exploded into a major software category with developments that range from even more powerful automation packages, tools designed specifically for social media marketing, and even predictive analytics tools that address the Big Data challenge. Tech integration also points towards greater alignment of the sales and marketing teams.