State of Marketing Report: A Glance at The Biggest Trends, Priorities, And Challenges Affecting Marketers Today

Salesforce has released its ninth edition of its “State of Marketing” report. The report, which surveyed 5,000 marketers worldwide, tries to discover how marketers evaluate the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and implement it in their operations. It also sheds light on how they approach their data acquisition, maintenance, and application strategies.

Here are the major highlights of the report.

1. Marketers Use Mix of Tactics To Deepen Audience Understanding

Eager to make the most out of each interaction, marketers deploy a wide variety of tactics to collect data for better understanding, marketers use about 9 different tactics on average across the entire customer journey.

From leveraging customer service and commerce data falling outside their traditional purview to using loyalty programs and accessing discounts, marketers are branching out from the most popular tactics. This indicates that marketers are taking a full-funnel approach to data.

2. Trusted Customer Data Takes Center Stage

With the end days of third-party cookies kicking in, marketers are increasingly looking to first-party data to understand their audience. Customer insight and transactional data is a good indication of what the audience wants. These sources are gleaned directly from customer activity with the business and are almost similar to first-party data.

Therefore, it’s no wonder that third-party data is on a decline with 38% of marketers not using third-party data at all. However, 61% of marketers still rely on third-party data, compared to 75% in 2022. This suggests that marketers are gradually moving away from using data from other companies.

3. High Performers Outpace Rivals with AI Integration

From scaling creativity to automating processes, AI holds a lot of promise. Hence, it makes sense why a growing number of marketers are looking to take advantage of it.

While 68% of marketers had a defined AI strategy in 2022, today 75% of marketers are either experimenting with AI or fully implementing it in their operations. In fact, high-performing marketers are 2.5x more likely than underperforming marketers to fully implement AI within their operations. Over one-third of underperforming marketers are yet to graduate from a formal consideration phase of AI. consequently, any AI benefit will continue eluding these underperformers until they start experimenting with AI.

4. Marketers Have Broad Concerns About AI

The use cases of generative AI have inspired marketers to test the technology for themselves too. 88% of marketers worry about missing out on the benefits of generative AI, compared to 78% of their sales and 73% of service colleagues.

Still, marketers, especially the ones at the executive level, have concerns about adopting AI while protecting data integrity and job stability. 41% of CMOs cite data exposure as a top concern compared to 29% of VPs and 32% of team leads. 98% of marketers feel that trustworthy data is essential. But its integration with AI is equally important. 

5. Marketers Move to a Lifecycle Approach for Personalization

Creating a unique brand experience requires ongoing, targeted engagement throughout the customer journey. This can be particularly challenging during the early stages, when less customer data is available. Such constraints could explain why marketers are more likely to personalize content for established customers than onboarding materials for newcomers.

Over half of marketers provide all of the above, taking a lifecycle approach to personalization. A lifecycle approach is when marketers personalize content along the entire customer journey — from onboarding to retention and ongoing support. Still, 43% of marketers take a fragmented approach to personalization, demonstrating an understanding of customer needs at certain stages and leveraging mass messaging at others. The divide is sharper when segmented by performance, as underperformers fall behind their high- and moderate-performing peers.

Bottom Line

In the face of an increasingly competitive and tech-driven marketing landscape, marketers are more determined than ever to captivate customers and find new ways to connect with audiences. In fact, 89% of marketers believe they must continually innovate to remain competitive.

With the promise of change a constant, most marketers fully understand the significance of fueling innovation and creating connected, personalized, and immersive experiences to stay ahead of customer expectations.

To delve deeper into the findings of the report, download the full report by clicking here.

We'll be back with more insightful reports for you. Till then, stay tuned!