Predictive technology the next big step for marketers as digital spending dominates
Lee Hawksley says use of predictive technologies on the rise
Nearly half of Australia’s marketers are planning to bet big on predictive technology to frame their marketing objectives as they try to get a handle on the evolving customer journey.
A global study of marketers by Salesforce, which included hundreds of Australian marketers, revealed that technology ‘was growing in its influence over the direction brands were taking’.
Australian marketers lagged only behind those in the US in their plans to integrate predictive technology into their strategies.
Some 47% of Australian marketers said they would be taking the predictive approach, compared with 49% of those in the US.
Marketers in the UK, France, Brazil, Germany and Japan all lagged behind Australia.
Lee Hawksley, JAPAC senior vice president with Salesforce marketing cloud, said the use of predictive technologies was allowing marketers to make greater sense of the data they were now being presented with.
“It fuels a smarter view of the customer and allows marketers to predict what will deliver relevant, personalised customer experiences,” Hawksley said.
“In the age of the connected customer, engagement must be real-time and relevant. Marketers need technology to tell them who to target, when to target and the best channels to get that message across.
“For example, an online retailer can use predictive intelligence to determine a customer’s likelihood to open an email, unsubscribe from an email list or make a purchase. This gives marketers the power to truly understand the behaviours that drive customer engagement.”
The report also found that mobile as a platform has now hit a tipping-point as consumers in many markets turned to mobile platforms as the preferred choice for digital engagement over computers and tablets.
“From 2015 to 2016, every aspect of mobile covered in this research has risen significantly in usage,” the report said.
“This growth encompasses both mobile as a marketing platform (such as mobile apps) and mobile as a marketing channel (such as SMS). With 98% growth in mobile app usage and 111% growth in SMS usage, a majority of marketers are now using these mainstream mobile tactics to engage customers.”
Digital spending to dominate marketing budgets by 2021. Source: Salesforce
While spending on digital channels already outstrips marketing spend on traditional mediums (62% compared with 38%), Salesforce predicts 75% of all marketing spend will be channeled towards digital within five years.
“In the next two years, 97% of marketing leaders plan to either further increase or maintain their level of spending on digital marketing. Over a 10-year span — from 2011 to 2021 — we’ll see 21% growth in digital marketing spending,” the report said.
Simon Canning
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Salesforce
98% of the 47% (of Australian marketers) don’t know the meaning of predictive analytics. The publication of self-serving PR releases is an abomination.
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I beg to disagree Richard.
The vast majority of marketers who have implemented marketing automation, and in particular B2B marketers, are very aware of what predictive analytics is, in some shape of form.
Lead scoring is a basic form of predictive analytics. More advanced and automated predictive analytics is now a key component of marketing clouds making it much easier and more comprehensive to use across website, digital advertising, email, mobile and other channels.
Predictive analytics is the core value proposition of lifecycle and retention marketing platforms as well. For example, Custora and Windsor Circle, and they have been around for 5 years now.
Have you or your company developed a customer lifetime value (CLV) measure? That’s using predictive analytics to determine how much a customer will buy from the company over time.
Do you have a “next best offer” or product recommendation capability? That’s an analytical prediction of the product or service that your customer is most likely to buy next.
Have you made a forecast of next quarter’s sales? Used digital marketing models to determine what ad to place on what publisher’s site?
All of these are forms of predictive analytics.
The advance of technology and SaaS providers over the past 10 years has simply made it much easier to implement predictive analytics and importantly use it in real-time across most channels.
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