This week, The CMO Survey provides an update to marketers to let them know where they now stand — and what they should expect in the next 3-5 years. Also, Safari in iOS 11 will take a bite out of cookie-tracking; Pinterest now has 200 million active users; and Facebook hits the snooze button on annoying content.
The CMO Survey predicts slowed growth in traditional marketing, increase for digital
Spending on marketing as a whole is growing more slowly now than any other time in nearly a decade, according to the recently released The CMO Survey (also available as a SlideShare). The bi-yearly survey, which was first released in August 2008, details that while overall marketing spend is growing at a slower pace than at any other time since the survey’s inception, the spend on digital marketing continues to grow at an accelerated pace.
While some might view the slower growth as a step back, Robert Rose mentioned on the “This Old Marketing” podcast that the slowed growth may be a good sign for marketers, if looked at from the right perspective.
“We are getting better at it. We are getting better at spending money more wisely. Thus, we don’t have to spend as much — and that may be the problem.” Rose said.
The full report is a fascinating read for any marketer, but some of the highlights include:
Expected increase in social media marketing spend
According to the report, social media marketing spending currently makes up 9.8 percent of overall marketing budgets. By next year, it is expected that this number will increase to 13 percent. In five years, the report estimates a jump to 18.5 percent. When broken down into sectors, the business-to-consumer product sector appears poised for the largest increase, with an expectation that social spending will nearly double in five years.
Increase in mobile marketing spend
Currently organizations are spending about 6 percent of their total marketing budgets on mobile marketing. In three years, this is expected to jump to 13 percent. As is true with social media spend, the sector with the largest mobile marketing spend is the business-to-consumer product sector, which insiders expect will be spending 20 percent of their total marketing budget on mobile before the end of 2020.
The number of indirect reports to top marketers has skyrocketed
Over the last three years, the number of people who report directly to the chief marketing officer in a company has stayed somewhat steady at between 5 and 7 direct reports. However, the number of indirect reports that chief marketing officers are responsible for has increased from an average of 16 to an average of 29 over the same time period, an increase of 81 percent. This is a sure sign that more groups and departments are being pulled into marketing coordination efforts.
Marketing analytics spend is going to go through the roof
In three years, the amount spent on marketing analytics is expected to increase by 229 percent. For Joe Pulizzi, known by some as the godfather of content marketing, this isn’t a surprise.
“The struggle is real for these marketing organizations,” Pulizzi said on the “This Old Marketing” podcast. “The idea of, you know, programmatic, analytics, and data mining, and all of that is top of mind for the CMO these days. It’s like, ‘How do we show that what we’re doing is working?’”
Pulizzi also claims that this isn’t a new problem for digital marketers. Measuring and reporting have been a struggle since the inception of marketing.
“We’ve always not been very good at proving that marketing earns its keep,” Pulizzi said.
Apple will integrate cookie-blocking technology into iOS 11, making it much more difficult for advertisers to retarget ads in Safari. This “Intelligent Tracking Prevention” feature puts in place a 24-hour time-limit for ads that utilize retargeting functions. In response to this, multiple advertising trade groups have expressed deep concern, saying the feature will sabotage marketing efforts.
Pinterest has just crossed the 200-million monthly active user threshold and is celebrating by releasing a new feature: board sections. Soon, Pinterest users will be able to create boards within boards, so they can organize their boards however they would like. Pinterest has just started testing the new feature, and expects to roll it out to all users soon.
Facebook is giving marketers something new to worry about: being snoozed. The snooze feature allows users to temporarily hide all updates from certain friends, pages, or groups for a period of one day, one week, or one month. Facebook is currently only testing this feature, but if it becomes a permanent fixture, brands may find themselves being snoozed for any number of reasons.
YouTube has released for the first time a list ranking of six-second bumper ads. YouTube created the list by utilizing an algorithm that factors click-throughs, user creative ratings, and organic views. Samsung owns the top six-second ad on this introductory list, though brands like Coca-Cola, Duracell, Nike, and IHOP all make appearances as well.
