82 percent of senior marketers worldwide consider predictive technologies to be necessary
A study by Forrester published on Monday shows that even experienced marketing professionals struggle to manage the enormous amounts of available data in a clear and organized way and to make it usable.
They consider the use of technologies that are driven by artificial intelligence and can make predictions (predictive technology) to be necessary in order to remain competitive in the future. 66 percent of respondents stated that their customer and marketing data comes from too many different sources to draw conclusive conclusions. 82 percent think that predictive marketing will be essential in order to keep up with competitors in the future.
The study, which was commissioned by Rocket Fuel in August 2017, is entitled "The Next Wave of Digital Marketing is Predictive". The opinions of 579 experienced marketing decision-makers from six countries were surveyed. Together, these decision-makers are responsible for an advertising budget of USD 1.2 billion. Forrester's findings highlight many of the challenges currently facing advertisers and media agencies. These include data management, reaching new users at different points of the customer journey and delivering personalized, relevant messages.
David Gosen, GM EMEA of Rocket Fuel: "The Forrester study is proof that brands will only thrive or survive if they rely on AI-driven, predictive technologies. Currently, only 30 percent of marketers use their own data to understand customer needs. In addition, 63 percent of respondents find it difficult to personalize advertising because they lack the necessary insights. These things absolutely must change if brands want to reach individual users at the exact moment they are receptive to an advertisement. This is the only way to convey the right message - regardless of where a consumer is in the customer journey. And only then can you build a lead over the competition. Today, user attention is a rare commodity and the channels and messages are almost endless. Predictive marketing offers the right answer to these challenges, because brands, marketing managers and agencies still need to find a way to play out advertising in a scalable, "always on" and data-driven way."
The marketing managers surveyed agreed that predictive marketing can help them to tackle some challenges more efficiently. They believe that predictive marketing provides them with solutions that enable them to both ensure advertising performance and generate in-depth insights. 86% of respondents said they plan to use AI to generate marketing insights within the next 12 months. 80 percent plan to use AI to deliver consistent, optimized cross-device content. In addition, 86 percent said predictive technologies will help them improve personalization and optimize creative.
The Forrester study offers 16 pages of qualitative data as well as quantitative statistics and a clear industry analysis. Readers will particularly benefit from the views and opinions of experienced marketing decision-makers, who themselves are currently having to adapt to a new digital world in which the customer journey is no longer linear and big data is no longer a unique selling point. The study can be downloaded from the microsite Rocketfuel.com/TLP downloaded free of charge.
