Apteco Ltd
Trend Report 2016 Data driven marketing This report discusses the findings of a survey of over 300 FastStats® software users working within marketing and technology disciplines across a variety of industries. Read on to discover what other organisations are doing with their data in the challenging areas of marketing automation, social media, real time and multi-channel campaigning. Comparing the data to the previous year’s results, this report uncovers trends in the adoption of marketing automation, mobile marketing, growing data volumes and cloud hosting, as well as revealing what is high on the agenda for marketers over the coming year.
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Trend Report 2016 Key findings Is marketing automation becoming a ‘must-have’ rather than a ‘nice to have’? With almost every second person already using a marketing automation tool and over a quarter of delegates planning to implement automation software within the next year, it appears that campaign automation is still high on the priority list for many marketers. Perhaps the hype of big data is not a big issue, or is it a question of how data is being used by marketers? According to this survey big data still seems to be a long way off for many and perhaps organisations are cleaning up their data and choosing the most relevant data to go into their marketing databases. Respondents don’t expect their data to grow as much in 2016 compared to their expectations in the previous year, with three quarters of respondents now only predicting modest growth of up to 10%. The forecast for cloud environments is a bit cloudy, or is the outlook brighter? Half of all respondents view cloud environments positively, but interestingly the number of respondents that don’t plan to deploy marketing systems in the cloud has almost doubled from the previous year. Now that organisations have had more time to consider cloud environments perhaps they have made firm decisions about whether to move to this approach or not. Is mobile marketing becoming the new favourite channel? Nearly 30% of respondents already have a mobile application and 42% aspire to in the future. As marketing continues to move towards increased multi-channel techniques it makes sense that mobile marketing is going to become more popular. Is campaigning in real-time still just an aspiration for many? The demand for real-time data remains high so that marketers can utilise up to the minute information to trigger timely analysis and campaign automation. 8 out of 10 respondents consider this a relevant topic and almost a third say they need it now. Does multi-channel marketing have email and direct mail as persistent core channels that are unlikely to change? Email is still the most dominant marketing channel for 6 out of 10 respondents, followed by direct mail for nearly a third. Retention and upselling to existing customers is still the overwhelming dominant purpose of email marketing for the majority of respondents.
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About the respondents The survey was carried out at the 2015 annual FastStats® User Group Conference on 11th November at The British Museum, London. Apteco partners and their FastStats® clients were provided with voting handsets so that they could immediately respond to a range of quick-fire questions about their current and future marketing plans. Survey respondents came from a range of industries including marketing data services providers, charity, retail, publishing, finance, leisure, technology, travel and insurance.
Respondents by country Most respondents are from organisations in the UK, however FastStats® users from Germany, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Australia also took part in the survey.
Respondents by job titles & roles A range of job titles and roles are represented across marketing and technology disciplines within the fields of data analytics, data, CRM, insight, database solutions, campaign management and sales.
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Marketing Automation Do you plan to implement marketing automation software? Over 80% of all respondents already have marketing automation software implemented within their businesses or aspire to do so. 44% of respondents already have marketing automation software in place (up 12% from 2014) and half of all respondents plan, or aspire, to do so. 6% plan to implement marketing automation immediately and 19% within the next year. Marketing automation is a highly discussed topic for marketers and these results clearly show that it is still high on the agenda for many organisations – it appears to be becoming a ‘must-have’ rather than a ‘nice to have’. Only a few respondents said they weren’t (4%), or were unlikely (4%) to implement marketing automation software.
50.00% 44.44%
45.00% 40.00% 35.00% 30.00% 25.00%
19.84%
20.00%
12.70%
15.00% 10.00% 5.00%
4.76%
7.54%
6.35%
4.37%
0.00% No
Unlikely
Yes – already in place
Yes – now
2014
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2015
Yes – within the next year
Yes – it’s an aspiration
Don't know
Data Volumes How big is your marketing database? Over 71% of respondents are managing transactional data volumes in the millions to hundreds of millions. Data volumes continue to range from one extreme to the other with almost 6% of respondents managing billions of transactions and 12% managing smaller volumes of 100’s of thousands or less. In 2015 there is almost a 10% drop in delegates with billions of transactional data volumes. Big data still seems to be a long way off for many and perhaps organisations are cleaning up their data and choosing the most relevant data to go into their marketing databases. Big data has perhaps become smart data and marketing teams are only using the most relevant data for their communications. The challenges of integrating mobile, social and web data might also play a part in keeping data volumes under control.
35.00%
31.06%
30.00% 25.00%
21.70% 18.72%
20.00% 15.00% 10.00%
9.79% 5.96%
6.81%
5.96%
5.00% 0.00% Less than Hundreds of Millions of Tens of Hundreds of Billions of I have no one thousands transactions millions of millions of transactions idea! hundred of transactions transactions thousand transactions transactions 2014
2015
How do you expect your data to grow in the next year? Respondents don’t expect their data to grow as much in 2016 compared to their expectations in the previous year. In 2014 almost half of all respondents expected more dramatic increases of 50% or more for 2015, however this didn’t appear to be the case. The big data expectation seems to have calmed with 75% now only predicting modest growth of up to 10% for 2016.
50.00% 45.00% 40.00% 35.00% 30.00% 25.00% 20.00% 15.00% 10.00% 5.00% 0.00%
42.97%
28.51%
3.61%
2.41%
No By a few By 10% Growth percent 2014
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10.44%
8.84%
By 50% 2015
3.21%
Double Many fold I have no idea!
Cloud Computing Does your organisation deploy marketing systems in the cloud? Nearly half of all respondents view cloud environments positively - 19% are already deploying marketing systems in the cloud, 9% plan to start using the cloud during 2016 and 21% aspire to at some point in the future. Interestingly the number of respondents that don’t plan to deploy marketing systems in the cloud at all has almost doubled to 41%, perhaps showing an increased reluctance to move to this type of hosting environment. Now that organisations have had more time to consider cloud environments it might be that some have made definite decisions not to move to this approach.
45.00%
41.11%
40.00% 35.00% 30.00% 25.00% 20.00%
21.34%
19.76%
15.00% 9.49%
10.00%
8.30%
5.00% 0.00% Yes, we do it now
No, but we plan to No, but we aspire to No and we have no within the year plans to do so 2014
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2015
Don't know
Mobile Marketing Does your organisation do mobile marketing? Almost 30% of respondents have a mobile application but only 12% use push notifications as a way to communicate with app users. 42% aspire to have a mobile app, which suggests that this is a key topic for marketers in 2016. As marketing continues to move towards increased multi-channel techniques that reach the right person with the right content via their preferred channels, it makes sense that mobile marketing is going to become more popular.
45.00%
42.04%
40.00% 35.00% 30.00% 24.49%
25.00% 20.00% 15.10% 15.00%
12.65%
10.00%
5.71%
5.00% 0.00% Yes, we have an app and do push notifications
Yes, we have a standalone app
No, but we aspire to No and we have no plans 2015
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Don't know
Real-Time Do you need to include live data in campaigns? The demand for real-time data for marketing communications remains high, enabling businesses to use up to the minute information for timely analysis and campaign automation. The number of respondents already including live data in campaigns has increased from 12% in 2014 to 16% in 2015 and 31% confirmed that they would like this ability now. 35% think it would be useful, however 14% are happy with daily updates for their campaigning requirements.
40.00% 35.06% 35.00%
31.87%
30.00% 25.00% 20.00%
16.73% 14.34%
15.00% 10.00% 5.00%
1.99%
0.00% Yes and we do so already
Yes and we need it now
Perhaps, it seems a useful option 2014
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2015
No, we are happy with daily updates
Don't know
Marketing Channels Which is the dominant marketing channel you have used this year? Email is still the most dominant marketing channel in 2015 for 58% of respondents, compared to 63% during 2014. This is followed by direct mail for 32% of respondents. Reliance on call centres seems particularly low, with less than 2% of respondents selecting this as their main channel. Interestingly, only 0.74% of respondents rated social media as their dominant marketing channel in 2015, which is a very similar level to that in 2014. Multiple response answers were allowed for this question.
70.00% 60.00%
58.36%
50.00% 40.00%
32.34%
30.00% 20.00% 10.00%
1.86%
0.74%
0.00%
2014
2015
0.37%
1.86%
2.97%
1.49%
0.00%
What is the dominant purpose of email used in your marketing? Retention and upselling to existing customers is still the overwhelming dominant purpose of email marketing for the majority of respondents (68%). Use of email for acquisition is up by 5% in 2015 (to 20%) and customer service (4.6%) and operational delivery (3%) are also important to some respondents. These findings indicate that other channels might be more suitable for new business acquisition.
80.00% 68.08%
70.00% 60.00% 50.00% 40.00% 30.00%
20.00%
20.00% 10.00%
4.62%
3.08%
2.69%
1.15%
0.38%
0.00% Acquisition Retention / Customer Operational Upsell Service Delivery 2014
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2015
Other
None
Don't know
Which channels are diminishing this year? Direct mail and call centres were identified as the most reduced channels for 60% of respondents in 2015. Interestingly, call centres were cited as diminishing by an additional 10% of respondents in 2015 compared to 2014. Multiple response answers were allowed for this question.
35.00%
30.39% 29.56%
30.00% 25.00% 20.00% 15.00%
11.33% 7.73%
10.00% 5.00%
3.31%
3.31%
3.04%
0.00%
2014
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7.73%
2015
3.59%
Data Sources What data do you have in FastStats®? When asked what data is held within their FastStats® data analysis and campaign automation systems, most respondents cited campaign data and response data, 37% and 34% respectively. This was followed by website visitor data (15%) and smaller numbers holding social, cookie and advertising data. Surprisingly website visitor data hasn’t increased since 2014 as might have been expected, considering that it offers analysts the opportunity to get a more comprehensive picture of their customers’ and prospects’ behaviour. In fact website data, along with cookie, social and display ads data levels have all remained pretty much static in 2015, indicating that the challenges of integrating into a single customer view still haven’t been resolved. There are perhaps two ‘data worlds’ - personalised data that is easy to integrate and anonymous data that is hard to integrate. . 40.00%
37.44% 34.79%
35.00% 30.00% 25.00% 20.00%
15.60% 15.00% 10.00% 5.62% 5.00%
2.50%
3.43% 0.62%
0.00% Campaign Data Response Data Web Visit Data Display Ads Data 2014
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2015
Cookie Data
Social Data
Don't know
Campaign Dynamics How many campaigns do you run per week? The most popular number of campaigns sent per week by 29% of respondents is still 5 or less. The next three ranges (5-10, 10-20 & 20-50) are all up compared to 2014 and nearly 60% of all respondents run 10 or less campaigns a week. 19% of respondents send 5-10 campaigns per week (up by 8%), 14% send 10-20 and 11% send 20-50. Interestingly 8% of respondents send over 50 campaigns a week, perhaps due to the increased use of automation which makes highly targeted messages across many different campaigns possible. 10% of respondents run less than 1 campaign per week.
35.00% 29.39%
30.00% 25.00%
19.47%
20.00%
14.50%
15.00%
11.45%
10.31%
8.02%
10.00%
6.87%
5.00% 0.00% Less than 1 Up to 5
5-10 2014
10-20
20-50
Over 50
Don't know
2015
What volume of communications do you send per week? Respondents continue to send a mixed variety of communication volumes per week, ranging from below 10 thousand to over 5 million. 44% of respondents send between 100 thousand and 1 million communications per week and 14% send about 5 million and over. Interesting the “About 5 million” volume has increased in 2015, whereas the “Over 5 million” volume has decreased. The pressure of big data pushing up communication volumes is perhaps being kept under 18.00% 15.42% 14.23% 14.62% 16.00% control with smarter 12.65% 14.00% targeting using 10.67% 12.00% 9.09% automation. Cost 8.70% 10.00% 7.51% 7.11% pressures might also 8.00% 6.00% limit the volumes of 4.00% communications that 2.00% can be sent by 0.00% organisations.
2014
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2015
Acquisition Marketing Do you need more support for acquisition marketing? 63% of respondents would like more support for acquisition marketing within their data analytics and campaign automation FastStats® systems. There is clearly a requirement for data from Ad-Serving (23%) and data management (31%) platforms to be more readily available for use in analytics and multi-channel campaigning. This will offer marketers new ways to identify potential prospects and target them across multiple channels, both online and offline.
35.00%
31.76%
30.00% 25.75% 23.18%
25.00% 20.00% 15.00%
9.87%
8.58%
10.00% 5.00%
0.86% 0.00% Yes, we already Yes, please manage cookies integrate with & drive AdAd-Serving Serving platforms platforms
Yes, we want to pull data from our data management platforms 2015
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No, everything we do is direct
Don't know
Other
About Apteco Apteco Ltd develops marketing data analysis and campaign automation software. Using the latest visualisation and analytical techniques for customer segmentation, data mining, predictive modelling, profiling, multi-channel campaign management, reporting, and much more, Apteco’s FastStats® software suite provides marketers with access to the information in their business. With a fast, visual and truly easy to use interface, FastStats® enables marketers to gain valuable insight and achieve better targeted, easier to measure and more cost effective marketing. FastStats® is proven in hundreds of installations with thousands of users worldwide.
Contact
[email protected] Melanie Davis Marketing Manager Apteco Ltd
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