Dive Brief:
- Ascend2’s State of Marketing Automation survey found that most marketers report their strategy with the software is successfully reaching objectives with 33% reporting very successful and 51% reporting above average.
- The key evaluation criteria for respondents was ease of implementation: “A majority (54%) of marketing influencers point to ease of implementation as an important evaluation criteria for selecting a marketing automation system. Ease of implementation is more important than even the cost of ownership,” Todd Lebo, partner and CMO, Ascend2, told Marketing Dive.
- Other key findings include the top strategic objectives are increasing ROI (46%), and optimizing productivity and acquiring more customers (both 45%). Critical challenges include measuring performance (41%), improving database quality and increasing ROI (both 39%).
Dive Insight:
While ease of implementation is the key evaluation criteria, most marketers still turn to third-party help when leveraging marketing automation software. Only 12% reported handling implementation fully in-house and 26% outsourced to a specialist with 62% reporting using a combination of in-house and outsourced resources. The combination option makes the most sense as the in-house team is able to learn from the third-party specialists during the implementation phase making it easier to actually begin using the software once it’s in place. A plurality of respondents, at 46%, think four to six months is a reasonable timeframe for implementation with 31% expecting three months or less and only 5% planning on the process to take more than a year.
While marketing technology is moving toward artificial intelligence and analytics based on huge data sets powered by machine learning, marketing automation software remains the workhorse piece of martech for managing day-to-day activities like email and other campaigns, as well as lead tracking and scoring. Lead tracking and scoring capabilities are particularly important for B2B marketers with long, complex sales cycles. The Ascend2 research found that 48% of respondents for the marketing automation survey reported a complex sales cycle, 19% a combination of complex and direct sales and 33% a short, direct sales cycle.