Almost a fifth (18%) of marketers are yet to implement marketing automation software, according to a new CommuniGator report.
And despite the steady increase in adoption over the past decade, nearly half (45%) of marketers who are currently using automation admitted to only using its core features, with just 2% believing they are using it to full capacity.
Email marketing remains the preferred way for B2B marketers to communicate with their prospects and customers, with over 68% using marketing automation to drive email campaigns.
When it comes to web-based personalisation, B2B marketers consider landing pages the most effective, while predictive analytics was identified as the least.
Lack of accountability holding back marketing automation success
Respondents professed that improving lead quality is the biggest benefit of marketing automation, followed by improved conversion rates, user experience and lead generation.
One of the main hindrances to marketing automation success is a lack of accountability. Indeed 78% of respondents found encouraging sales and marketing to work together to implement it a challenge.
However, 62% agreed the platform is marketing’s responsibility, while 27% said the responsibility is shared with sales.
On a global level, recent research from Act-On Software seems to suggest European marketing professionals are lagging behind their North American peers when it comes to MA usage, while a separate study from B2B Marketing and Sitecore found over a third of B2B marketers admit their marketing automation efforts are ineffective.
Lee Chadwick, CEO at CommuniGator, said: “There is a key difference between the practices of marketing automation and the reality of use. For us, the findings from the past year are key indicators of what we can do with marketing automation moving forward.”
