Reaching the Next Level of Marketing Performance
Digital Marketing
Strategy
Research Summary Report
Ascend2 Research Conducted in Partnership with Leading Marketing Solution Providers
Digital Marketing Strategy Research Summary Report
Ascend2 Research Conducted in Partnership with Leading Marketing Solution Providers.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
You may adapt, copy, distribute and transmit this work. However, you must attribute the work as produced by Ascend2 and its Research
Partners but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work.
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Table of Contents
Reaching the next level of digital marketing performance
Most import digital marketing objectives
Rating the success of digital marketing programs
Most challenging obstacles to digital marketing success
Digital marketing effectiveness is changing
Most effective types of digital marketing used
Most difficult types of digital marketing to execute
Resources used to plan and execute a digital marketing strategy
Comparing tactical effectiveness with degree of difficulty
How spending on digital marketing is changing
Extent of marketing software usage to manage digital
Research methodology and survey demographics
About Ascend2
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Reaching the next level of digital marketing performance.
A Digital Marketing Strategy is essential to achieving or sustaining growth today. Yet, lack of an
effective strategy is the greatest obstacle to digital marketing success for 51% of companies.
How will marketers reach the next level of digital marketing performance in the year ahead?
To find out, Ascend2 and our Research Partners fielded the Digital Marketing Strategy Survey and
completed interviews with 333 marketing, sales and business professionals from around the
world. We thank them for sharing their valuable insights with you.
The charts in this edition of our study, titled Digital Marketing Strategy Research Summary Report
represent the average of all market segments responding to the survey. Specific market segments
are reported on exclusively by our Research Partners.
This research has been produced for your use. Put it to work in your own marketing strategy
planning and presentation materials. Clip the charts and write about them in your blog or post
them on social media. Please share this research credited as published.
Sergio Balegno
Chief Strategy Officer, Ascend2
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The most important objectives of a digital marketing
strategy vary greatly. However, reducing marketing and
customer service costs are surprisingly least important.
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Nearly nine out of ten companies (89%) rate digital
marketing successful to some extent, with more than a
quarter (27%) achieving “very successful” results.
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The most challenging obstacle to success is clearly the
lack of an effective digital marketing strategy, followed
by an inadequate budget to fund programs.
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One quarter of companies have reached a plateau in
their digital marketing performance. However, 71%
report that effectiveness continues to improve.
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Email maintains its position as the most effective type
of digital marketing used. However, the gap between
email and other types of digital marketing is closing.
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Social media, content and SEO are categorized as
inbound marketing tactics. They are also the three
most difficult types of digital marketing to execute.
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62% of companies outsource all or part of their digital
marketing, mainly the most difficult types. Outsourcing
supplements internal skills to improve performance.
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Email’s popularity is due, in large part, to the fact that it
is not only the most effective type of digital marketing,
it is also the least difficult to execute.
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A majority (57%) of companies will continue to increase
spending on digital marketing, while only 6% believe a
budget decrease is the better strategy.
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Marketing software is used to save digital marketing
time, reduce expense and improve the customer
experience for 74% of companies.
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Notes
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Research methodology
Ascend2 Research Surveys are conducted online from a panel of more than 50,000
US and international marketing and sales decision-makers and practitioners
representing a range of contact roles, company types, sizes and geographic regions.
The questionnaire used is standardized to incorporate these methodologies across all
studies while maintaining our proven 3-Minute Survey format. Survey findings are
examined in a quantitative context by experienced analysts and reported objectively.
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Survey demographics
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About Ascend2
Research-Based Demand Generation for Marketing Solution Providers
Marketing agencies, marketing software and data companies partner with Ascend2 to
reliably generate demand and supplement marketing content. Our Research Partner
Programs are transparent – spotlighting your brand and the interests of your market.
Learn more at www.Ascend2.com
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Marketing agencies, software and data companies partner
with Ascend2 to generate demand and supplement content.
Research Partner Programs provide white label reports
and a guaranteed number of leads in two simple steps:
1. Choose the topics of interest to your target market
• Content Marketing
• Website Optimization
• Email Marketing
• Inbound Marketing
• Video Marketing
• Paid Search (PPC)
• Organic Search (SEO)
• Lead Generation
• Mobile Marketing
• Social Media
• Brand Marketing
• Marketing Database
2. Choose an exclusive research segment for each marketing topic
• Benchmarks for Success [A comparison of Very Successful and Not Successful segments]
• Benchmarks by Channel [A comparison by or targeting of B2B and/or B2C segments]
• Benchmarks by Company Size [A comparison by or targeting of SMB and/or Large Enterprises]
• Agency Benchmarks [The Agency perspective based on a wide-range of client experience]
• Benchmarks by Resources [A comparison of Outsourced and In-house campaign segments]
• Benchmarks for Europe [The European perspective on marketing practices and performance]
• Benchmarks by Revenue Attainment [A comparison of performance by Revenue Targets Attained]
• Marketing Leadership Benchmarks [A perspective from C-Level and Marketing Leaders]
Learn more about research-based demand generation at Ascend2.com.
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