Heinz Marketing and OnTarget Consulting and Research conducted the 2014 Marketing Automation Effectiveness Survey. We are sharing the data points from the survey in this document.
3. Company size: Annual revenue of
respondents
Annual Revenue Total 0 -2 years 2 – 5 years 5+ years
Up to $25 million 24.5% 52.9% 5.3% 16.7%
$25 - $50 million 12.2 11.8 15.8 8.3
50 – 100 million 12.2 11.8 15.8 8.3
Greater than $100 million 26.5 5.9 31.6 50.0
Don’t know/refused 24.5 17.6 31.6 16.7
Question: Which best describes your company’s annual revenue?
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4. How Long Using
Marketing Automation
Total
0 – 1 year 14.3%
1 – 2 years 20.4
2 – 5 years 38.8
Over 5 years 24.5
Don’t know/refused 2.0
Question: Approximately how long has your company been using marketing automation tools of any kind?
Time using Marketing Automation
• Nearly 35% of respondents reported using Marketing Automation tools for less than 2 years.
• Nearly 25% reported using Marketing Automation tools for over 5 years.
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5. Importance of Marketing
Automation tools to sales and
marketing success
• Proficiency and performance take time. The performance peak commonly takes place at
2 years. Users with over 5 years experience show the best impact to sales
performance.
• Nearly 50% of respondents rated MA tools as being very important to their company’s
sales and marketing efforts (reporting score of 7 on 1 – 7 scale)
• 75% of respondents who’s companies had been using MA tools for over five years
reported that they were very important to their company’s sales and marketing efforts.
Performance Rating Total 0 -2 years 2 – 5 years 5+ years
% with scores of 7 49.0% 35.3% 47.4% 75.0%
% with score of 5 -6 36.7 52.9 42.1 8.3
% with score of 1 - 4 12.2 11.8 10.6 16.6
Question: How would you rate the importance of your company’s marketing automation efforts to the overall success
of your company’s marketing and sales efforts on a scale of 1 -7, where 7 means very important and 1 means not important at all.
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6. Importance of Marketing
Automation tools vs. previous year
• Over 75% of respondents reported that the importance of MA tools to their company’s
success had increased over the past year.
• Nearly 95% of respondents that had been using MA tools less than 2 years reported
that the importance of MA tools to company success had increased over the past year.
Importance Rating Total 0 -2 years 2 – 5 years 5+ years
Importance has
increased
76.9% 94.1% 73.7% 66.7%
Importance has remained
the same
14.3 - 21.3 25.0
Importance has
decreased
2.0 - 5.3 -
Question: Which best describes the importance of your company’s marketing automation efforts today vs. one year ago?
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7. Effectiveness of Marketing
Automation tools vs. previous year
• Over 75% of respondents reported that the effectiveness of their company’s MA tools
had increased vs. the previous year.
• Effectiveness appears to level off at the 5 year mark of usage. This possibly indicates
how marketing automation usage is maxed with current levels of capability.
Performance Rating Total 0 -2 years 2 – 5 years 5+ years
Effectiveness has
increased
75.5% 76.5% 84.2% 58.3%
Effectiveness has
remained the same
16.3 17.6 10.5 25.0
Effectiveness has
decreased
2.0 - - 8.3
Question: Which best describes the effectiveness of your company’s marketing automation efforts today vs. one year ago?
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8. Impact of Marketing Automation
tools on sales effort effectiveness
• Over 80% of respondents reported that their use of MA tools had increased the
effectiveness of their company’s sales efforts.
MA impact on increasing
sales success
Total 0 -2 years 2 – 5 years 5+ years
Effectiveness has
increased
83.7% 82.4% 84.2% 91.7%
Has had no impact on
sales success
6.1 - 15.8 -
Effectiveness has
decreased
- - - -
Don’t know /not sure 10.2 17.6 - 8.3
Question: Which best describes the impact of your company’s marketing automation efforts on the overall effectiveness of your
company’s sales efforts ?
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9. Importance/performance of
Marketing Automation capability
• “Pipeline reporting” and “increasing sales team effectiveness” were identified as key MA
tools that were not performing as well as desired. Pipeline reporting consistently shows
up as a pain point for users less than 2 years to over 5 years.
Importance/performance areas
All Respondents
Importance
Score
Performance
Score
Performance
Gap
CRM Integration 9.12 8.60 -.52
Manage Demand Generation Campaigns 8.95 8.26 -.69
Lead Segmentation 8.88 8.24 -.64
Pipeline Reporting 8.76 7.43 -1.33
Increase Sales Team Effectiveness 8.74 7.24 -1.50
Outbound Marketing Integration 8.63 8.13 -.50
Evaluate effectiveness of marketing campaigns 8.59 7.82 -.77
Generating new prospects 8.45 7.46 -.99
Extending length of customer lifecycle 8.43 8.07 -.36
Lead sourcing 8.35 7.73 -.62
Measuring content effectiveness 8.22 7.45 -.77
Nurturing/increasing revenue from existing customers 7.98 7.30 -.68
Social media/social networking 6.32 6.63 +.31
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10. Importance/performance of
Marketing Automation capability
(those using for less than two years)
• “Pipeline reporting” was identified as a key MA tool that was not performing as well as desired.
• Performance and ROI reporting is critical at all stages of usage. Our results indicate MA platforms are
lacking the needed analytics and reporting capabilities, or the knowledge how to use the functionality.
Respondents using MA for less than two years Importance
Score
Performance
Score
Performance
Gap
Pipeline reporting 9.00 8.00 -1.00
Extended length of customer lifecycle 9.00 8.25 -.75
CRM Integration 8.86 7.93 -.93
Manage demand generation campaigns 8.70 7.90 -.80
Lead Scoring 8.58 8.00 -.58
Lead segmentation 8.55 8.00 -.55
Evaluate effectiveness of marketing campaigns 8.23 7.15 -1.08
Increase sales team effectiveness 8.15 6.85 -1.30
Outbound marketing integration 8.10 7.30 -.80
Measuring content effectiveness 8.00 7.22 -.78
Nurturing/increasing revenue from existing customers 7.23 6.85 -.38
Generating new prospects 7.09 6.67 -.42
Social media/social networking 6.32 6.67 +.35
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