Digital Marketing Spending Soars as Marketers’ Roles Reach Higher Echelons | Best Way To Learn Digital Marketing

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Results from the 27th edition of the CMO Survey show that marketing bonds and strategic roles have increased compared to rising spending.

Expenditure on digital marketing funds has grown to include 58% of the marketing budget, which represents 15.8% growth over the past year, and is expected to grow by 14.7% next year. Following this spending, the 27th edition of the CMO Survey finds that digital marketing is the No. 1 responsibility reported by advertisers, which goes beyond the historical focus on product-related activities. These and other results are based on a sample of 282 top advertisers in U.S. companies. profitable, 94.1% of them at VP level or higher.

The epidemic has caused many companies to make rapid changes in their market-leading models. More companies report going through the emerging phase of their digital transformation (31.1% in this category last year to only 8.6% today) and moving to the emerging stages (53.1%), integrated (26.9%) or institutional (11.4%). Commercial leaders report that they have been asked to lead 73% of digital transformation in companies, challenging the notion that such processes are handled primarily by technology leaders.

Marketing leaders are also asked by their CEOs or CFOs to participate in board meetings (at a rate of 4.9) and to facilitate profit calls (at a rate of 3.6 on a 7-point scale where 1 = never and 7 = all the time) than ever before. While there is room for improvement, these encouraging results show that commercial leaders are getting more seats on the table than is recommended in popular newspapers.

As CMOs get opportunities to highlight the role of marketing with key stakeholders, they are under increasing pressure to demonstrate the value of their marketing efforts, with 59% of marketing leaders reporting additional pressure from CEOs and 45% reporting increased pressure from CFOs. Many retailers report being able to demonstrate the short-term impact of sales revenue using volume tools, while many report that showing long-term impact remains a quality check.

Considering the specific metrics used, marketing leaders report that the impact of sales and customer engagement makes up about 50% of the survey. In line with these findings, sales revenue and digital operations are the result of continuous tracked sales. Metrics such as product equity value and customer life time, on the other hand, are rarely tracked. Advertisers expect that the use of artificial intelligence or machine learning to predict and measure three times in the next three years.

Total sales spending increased by 5.2% last year and is expected to grow next year by 13.4%. Traditional spending rates on advertising increased for the first time in ten years with an expected growth of 1.4% over the next year. Marketing costs as a percentage of the company's revenue declined for the first time since 2017, but increased as a percentage of the company's budget. Considering the growth of the overall marketing budget over the past year, the evidence suggests that revenue has risen sharply over the same period, reducing marketing costs as a percentage of the company's revenue.

Advertisers' confidence in the US economy also rose above mid-epidemic levels and began to stabilize against pre-epidemic prices. Expectations reached 69.6 (out of 100), up from 66.3 in February 2021 and a dramatic increase from 50.9 in the COVID high in June 2020. In line with this, retailers reported a significant increase in revenue (11.1%) and profits (10.4%). ). following only 0.3% revenue and 2.6% profit margins in February 2021. Delta variations diminished confidence in the next quarter, but, overall, advertisers reported a positive outlook for their larger retail markets.

Considering population issues, companies report an average increase of 10.6% on spending on equity, equity and inclusion (DEI) over the past year, from 8.9% over the past six months. Against this backdrop, advertisers report additional changes to DEI for marketing training, segmentation / targeting, product / service design, and collaboration. At the same time, companies are making small changes in their marketing strategies to reach a wide range of customers. In fact, nearly a quarter of companies do not change their marketing strategies at all, citing the difficulty of visualizing and evaluating a number of DE&I-related opportunities as high barriers.

When asked how home-based job opportunities after an epidemic affect their marketing organizations, sales leaders report more opportunities to hire people who want to work from home (74%) than to lose (33%) these workers. Similarly, sales leaders report more opportunities to hire people who want to work in an office (62%) than to lose (12%) these employees.

The full results of the 27th CMO Survey program, which includes detailed marketing and operational trends across all industries, can be found at cmosurvey.org/results.