2/1/08

Interactive Marketers Unsure of Tracking Capabilities

According to the new Sapient annual Interactive Marketing Survey more than half the marketing senior level respondents felt only ‘somewhat confident' or ‘not confident at all' in their organization's abilities to track campaigns across multiple channels in real-time, with only 19 percent reporting the ability to make campaign changes in less than 24 hours.

Confidence Level To Track Campaigns Across Multiple Digital Channels in Real Tiime

Confidence Level

% of Respondents

Highly confident

16%

Confident

33

Somewhat confident

39

Not confident at all

12

Source: Sapient, January 2008

While social networking was cited the least "trackable" digital channel, according to the survey, it was the channel with the largest anticipated increase in marketing analytics spend for 2008. Only 12 percent of respondents tracked social networking campaign performance in 2007; in 2008, 42 percent anticipate using analytics to track this increasingly important channel.

Performance Least Confident in Tracking

Digital Channel Performance

% of Respondents

Search

11%

Email

12

Mobile

16

Digital advertising

11

Social networking

25

None

6

Don't know/na

9

Source: Sapient, January 2008

Nearly half the respondents said they do not believe campaign data provided to them evenly measures and compares performance across all digital channels, but ifficulty in comparing metrics across channels is the most common hurdle to accuracy in this area, cited by 28 percent of respondents

Biggest Hurdle for Organization to Measure and Compare

Hurdle

% of Respondents

Don't have capabilities to interpret

15%

Difficult to compare metrics

28

Difficult to work with IT to implement

8

No technology in place

18

Bias toward previously effective channels

20

Don't know/na

11

Source: Sapient, January 2008

Email and search were cited as the two channels that marketers were most confident in their ability to track, and 38% of marketers said search resulted in the highest ROI to their organizations. 28% of marketers plan to increase search spending in 2008.

Area of Digital Marketing Budget Expected to Increase Most in 6-12 Months

Digital Channel Performance

% of Respondents

Search

28%

Email

14

Mobile

14

Digital advertising

19

Social networking

16

None

2

Don't know/na

7

Source: Sapient, January 2008

Sapient Chief Creative Officer, Gaston Legorburu, concludes "In 2008, marketers will seek the ability to seamlessly incorporate social networking with their other channels, including search and email, and the capability to monitor and measure performance to ensure they are achieving optimum results."

For graphic charts and additional information, please visit Marketing Charts here.

More information on the report and Sapient may be found here.

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