We’ll say it again: personalization does work. ROI was over 4x for 71% of retailers who invested in personalized customer experience, according to this Netcore report. Data gathering is a challenge, with barely half using cross-device and offline data (51%) or real-time behavioral data (49%). Lots more here of interest.
Tech bashing isn’t exactly a market, but it’s definitely a growth industry. WPP’s GroupM media agency is adding heat with a report that the top 25 media suppliers earn 67% of ad global revenue, up from 42% four years ago for the same companies. The better comparison would be the top 25 suppliers four years ago vs the top 25 today, but there’s no doubt that concentration is up. Plenty more here on other aspects of the industry.
Much as consumers like personalization, they’re still highly suspicious about data collection. Tinuiti found that 79% think their phone listens to their conversations and makes product recommendations based on what it hears. While 46% say apps track their activity to make their experience better, even more say they do it sell their data to other companies (51%), and a substantial minority say the real purpose is cyberstalking (24%), finding their political views (22%), telling “Big Brother” (18%) and reading their minds (18%). (Speaking of trust, I never received the promised... Read More >
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.