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Companies are planning record investment in digital marketing technology this year, according to a new report from Econsultancy, in partnership with Oracle Marketing Cloud.
The research, part of an annual Marketing Budgets Report, found that 79% of companies are planning to increase their spending specifically on digital marketing technology – the biggest investment since the research was launched in 2010 and an increase of 13% on last year.
The number of companies planning the same level of investment as last year fell to 20% whilst only 1% said that they would be spending less than last year. The move comes as spending on digital marketing also hits similar record levels with 77% of companies planning to increase their spend on digital marketing in 2015.
Client spend
A similar trend was true for the number of agencies saying that their clients were planning increased spending on digital marketing technology – up from 77% last year to 87% for 2015.
The biggest area of investment is in testing with A/B and multivariate testing taking the hot spot as marketers try to optimise what they are doing. Half of those surveyed plan to spend more in this area followed closely by CRM at 48%, marketing analytics at 42% and conversion and optimisation tools at 39%.
Investment in data management platforms is also set for rapid growth with the number of companies planning to invest in this area doubling in the past year.
Video advertising and retargeting
Although a lower number of people were planning to spend on video advertising (30%) and re-targeting technology (36%) the proportion of those planning increased spend actually grew by more than half – up by 58% and 50% respectively.
When it comes to investment in ecommerce platforms, marketing automation and content management systems however the number of companies planning to increase investment has fallen down by 23%, 20% and 13% respectively.
Conversely however for agency respondents asked about what their clients are most likely to be increasing investment in content management systems came out top with more than half believed to be planning increased spend on such technology.
The report surveyed 600 digital marketers and ecommerce professionals between December 2014 and January 2015.
