And while we’re questioning assumptions, maybe Account Based Marketing isn’t so important, either. ABM vendor Terminus and the Heinz Marketing agency found that just 61% of organizations said they’re using ABM, compared with 81% one year ago. The percentage planning a budget increase similarly dropped from 82% to 60%. Thinking positive, the report argues the slower growth is a sign of maturity.
We wrote yesterday about marketers doing too much personalization, so it seems only fair to cover this Monetate report that personalization correlates with strong financial performance. But there’s less contradiction than it seems: companies with the best results are targeting lifetime value and loyalty while those focused immediate revenue or conversion lagged substantially. In other words, personalization works when it meets real customer needs.
Meanwhile, SaaS technology management vendor Blissfully reports that 1,000+ employee firms use an average of 211 SaaS applications and replace an average of 38% over a two year period. Among companies of all sizes, 71% have at least one SaaS subscription with no billing owner, suggesting it’s not actively used. Let’s just say there’s room for improvement.
Salesforce’s Dreamforce mega-conference is next week and the company’s publicity elves are already working overtime. In the first of what are sure to be daily announcements this week, the company announced 100+ industry-specific prompts, data models, and AI capabilities across its fifteen industry clouds. It also launched an AI Use Case Library to house its industry-specific AI offerings.