On the other hand, BRP Consulting argues that marketers should give consumers more personalization, not less. They found 87% of consumers want a “personalized and consistent experience across channels” while just 53% of retailers make personalization a top priority. But BRP is looking at convenience features, such as a shopping cart shared across channels or real time inventory visibility, not personalized offers.
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.
Martech keeps taking larger bites out of marketing budgets: 17.3% last year, 19.9% this year, 23.5% next year, and 30.9% five years from now, according to the latest CMO Survey. This despite barely more than half (56.4%) of current tools being used and nearly half (48.8%) of the survey respondents reporting worse-than-expected results. Oddly enough, marketers rate selecting marketing technologies as the thing they do best.