By Brian Hansford, marketing automation practice lead for Heinz Marketing
Heinz Marketing and OnTarget Consulting completed the 2014 Marketing Automation Effectiveness and Performance Survey and we are proud to share the infographic with the results. Heinz Marketing’s very own Nicole Williams designed this infographic.
The primary focus was to measure the effectiveness and performance that companies have using marketing automation. We also measured performance against expectations. (We shared the preliminary data from in this post.) We surveyed companies all over North America that ranged in size from $25 million to over $1 billion in annual revenues with a range of utilization from under 1 year to over 5 years, respectively. (Note: We did not measure vendor popularity or customer satisfaction.) Our survey data is available on SlideShare.
Success Comes from Steady Progress
The biggest takeaway is that success takes time. The biggest jump in productivity and value occurs at the 2 year mark and appears to level out after 5 years of marketing automation utilization. The lesson here is that executives inside and outside of marketing cannot and should not expect a windfall of revenue results in one month or one quarter. Marketing automation supports a demand generation strategy. Results are incremental over time – not instantaneous. Also, technology itself is not the strategy which automatically leads to success. Success comes from steady progression over time.
Marketing Automation Vendors Must Focus on Innovation for Customers – Not M&A
The top problem areas for companies using marketing automation was pipeline reporting and improving sales effectiveness. There are a few ways to interpret this data. Analytics must get better with marketing automation platforms to help analyze ROI and forecast potential results. Forecasting and attribution are possible to an extent now, but the set up process isn’t easy and measuring the right data is problematic. Vendors can do more to innovate their platforms to support better reporting and analytics. Additionally, marketing automation vendors can do more to innovate marketing through channels beyond email and landing pages. Now that the first major wave of M&A and IPO’s are completed, it’s time for innovation to pick up again. Focus on customers – not shareholders.
We would appreciate your feedback on this survey and our infographic. Please feel free to share this infographic with your community!
