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UK marketing budgets show weak growth in 3Q18

UK marketing budgets rose during 3Q18 but at a much slower rate than previous quarters, according to the latest data from the IPA Bellwether Report.

Although it’s six years since the survey recorded negative growth, the latest quarter’s figure is the lowest since before the EU Referendum.

21% of the IPA Bellwether panel’s members revised total marketing budgets upwards in Q3, and around 18% downwards, giving an overall net balance of 2.5%.

This translates into the lowest figure since Q4 of 2015, and down significantly on the 6.5% recorded in Q2.

While Internet marketing showed a positive net balance at 13.6% mobile marketing budgets showed very little growth, with a net gain of 1.9%.

Interestingly, more ‘traditional’ marketing spend was more robust, with the net balance for ‘main media advertising’ at 4.9%, (up slightly from 4.8% in Q218).

Net contractions were recorded for events marketing (-1.1%), market research (-3.7%), direct marketing (-7.4%) and ‘other’ marketing (-9.9%).

For more report insight, check out www.ipa.co.uk/page/ipa-bellwether-report .

Mobile ad spend growth set to slow to 12% CAGR

The rapid growth in mobile advertising expenditure is set to slow significantly over the next five-years, according to Strategy Analytics.

After growing over six-fold between 2013 and 2018, growth in mobile advertising revenue will fall to a 12% CAGR and the market value will reach $222 billion in 2023.

In short, while the mobile share of digital advertising will grow rapidly in less developed advertising markets, in advanced markets the share over mobile is reaching a plateau.

Strategy Analytics expects mobile advertising to continue to suffer from headwinds including increased cautiousness following Facebooks Cambridge Analytica scandal and the implementation of GDPR.

Other key findings include:-

  • Mobile advertising will rise from to 67% in 2023. In markets where multi-device use is high, like the U.S., mobile advertising will account for just 58% of all digital in 2023, while in mobile-centric markets like India it will reach 71%.
  • Asia-Pacific is leading the mobile transition, representing around 44% of global mobile ad spend across the period. At a country-level and in terms of absolute ad spend, the U.S., and mobile-first markets China and Japan will remain leaders although their positions will erode.
  • Search will remain the dominant mobile advertising format with 47% of ad spend across the period while mobile video ad spend will be the fastest growing (+16.5% CAGR over 2018-2023) driven by the adoption of 6-second mid-rolls, and vertical ad formats by industry leaders Snapchat, Facebook and more recently YouTube.

Brice Longnos, Analyst Wireless Media at Strategy Analytics, said: “Growth of mobile advertising in developed markets, where the largest brands and advertisers can be found, is slowing down as mobile competes with other screens for eyeballs, such as connected televisions. Meanwhile, in emerging mobile-first markets, mobile phones may be the primary screen for content consumption but ad budgets are lower. Therefore, the contribution to global mobile ad spend from those markets will be marginal.

“Furthermore, the progression of programmatic in display and video advertising will make ad spend more cost-efficient, increasing impressions and engagement per dollar spent. These three factors explain why we see mobile advertising expenditures slowing from 2018 onwards.”

Nitesh Patel, Director Wireless Media, added: “With mobile accounting a dominant share of revenues for leading social networks Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter in Europe, the restrictions imposed on customer data collection will be particularly felt as advertisers and publishers figure out the best approach for delivering targeted advertising while complying with regulation. In the long run, we expect advertisers to benefit as consumers giving consent will be more receptive and engaged with ad experiences.”

Global marketing technology market valued at $100 billion

The global marketing technology market is worth $99.9 billion, according to a study by accountancy Moore Stephens and research outfit WARC.

The study, carried out amongst more than 800 UK, North American, Asia-Pacific and European brands and agencies, was initiated to better understand the scale of investment into the sector, and reveals not only a huge existing market, but one that continues to grow exponentially.

When asked about the outlook for the market, brands expect to increase their investment in martech for the year ahead. This is particularly true in the case of Europe (excluding UK), where nearly two thirds (63%) said they expect their budgets to increase.

In the UK and North America, brands have increased their martech budgets by 44%, it’s now worth up to $52 billion. These brands are spending nearly a quarter (23%) of their budgets on martech, up from 16% 12 months ago.

Interestingly, brands in UK and North America are also keen to spend on in-house technology.

63% of technology budgets were spent in-house – compared to 44% last year – a figure driven by a desire from brands to excel in their customer experience, coupled with an element of mistrust in agencies.

Damian Ryan, Partner at Moore Stephens, said: “Investment in martech has reached a tipping point over the last twelve months. Established marketers in disrupted industries, such as insurance and financial services, realise they need to invest if they are to future-proof themselves, and view martech as a key area of investment. Just look at Nationwide Building Society’s recent announcement of £1 billion investment in tech. Staying relevant is key but taking on the new breed of competitors – such as Revolut – is creating a big rethink.

“All the while, agencies are struggling to stay relevant. Clearly marketers are seeking to build in-house strength and are set to spend more on martech to remain competitive. Our research finds that this budget is coming from media spend and will have a resounding impact on the value of media-centric agencies.”

Looking at the global market, those who said their budget will increase expect to see an average increase of 13%. Even more indicative of a fast-growing market is the fact that around one-in-five (18% in North America, 17% UK) expect increases of more than 25% in their martech budgets over the next year.

The research also looked at the specific technologies behind the market. On a global scale, perhaps unsurprisingly, email remains the most likely avenue for martech, used by 79% of marketers. This is closely followed by social media, with 77% currently using the technology with a further 18% expecting to use in the next 12 months.

The most planned for tactic in the year ahead, interestingly, is SEO – an established marketing discipline, but one which continues to change as algorithms develop. The biggest rise, year-on-year for the UK & North American market, was the use of martech for analytics, measurement and insights, selected by 75% – a 19% rise on a year ago.

The study showed that the most established tech currently in use is that of ‘internet of things’ (IoT) and connected devices. Second is voice which has seen rapid development over the past year, influencing the way searches are made online and driving progress in areas such as voice optimisation. A new wave of martech tools will likely emerge, and when the results are broken down by region, the UK is likely to be the most progressive in terms of voice search, with 36% stating they currently use a tool in this area, and a further 11% planning to do so in the next few months.

Amy Rodgers, Research Editor at WARC, said: “There has been no discernible sign that the rate of growth within the martech space is slackening. With data volumes continuously increasing, this research shows that data, analytics and automation are key focuses for martech investment globally as marketers look for help with metrics and measurement.

“Understanding of the technology available continues to be an issue for brands, however, and with many planning to move tech in-house over the next year, agencies will have to adapt to a changing, advisory role in the martech strategies of their clients.”

Click here to download a copy of the Martech: 2019 And Beyond report.

60% of UK businesses won’t be ready for GDPR deadline

A new report by Crowd Research Partners has revealed that only 40 per cent of organisations are either GDPR compliant or well on their way to compliance by the May 2018 deadline.

The report highlights the lack of GDPR expertise and an overall underestimation of the effort required to meet GDPR, which represents the most sweeping change in data privacy regulation in decades.

The key findings of the study include:

  • A whopping 60% of organisations are at risk of missing the GDPR deadline. Only 7% of surveyed organizations say they are in full compliance with GDPR requirements today, and 33% state they are well on their way to compliance deadline.
  • While 80% confirm GDPR is a top priority for their organization, only half say they are knowledgeable about the data privacy legislation or have deep expertise; an alarming 25% have no or only very limited knowledge of the law.
  • The primary compliance challenges are lack of expert staff (43%), closely followed by lack of budget (40%), and a limited understanding of GDPR regulations (31%). A majority of 56% expect their organization’s data governance budget to increase to deal with GDPR challenges.
  • Approximately a third of surveyed companies report that they will need to make substantial changes to data security practices and systems to be in compliance with GDPR. The highest ranked initiative for meeting EU GDPR compliance is to make an inventory of user data and map it to protected EU GDPR categories (71%), followed by evaluating, developing, and integrating solutions that enable GDPR compliance.

The 2018 GDPR Compliance Report has been based on a comprehensive online survey of IT, cybersecurity and compliance professionals in the 400,000-member Information Security Community on LinkedIn, and has been produced in partnership with Alert Logic, AlienVault, Cavirin, Data443, D3 Security, Haystax Technology, and Securonix.

To download a copy, click here.

Want consumer trust? Ditch the .tv, .biz, .io and .mobi domain names…

A new YouGov survey has revealed that the .gov.uk suffix creates the greatest trust amongst the British public.

And while only Government institutions are able to use that particular domain style, the findings make for interesting reading elsewhere.

The YouGov Omnibus asked the British public how far they trusted 12 common website domains. The results reveal that the majority of Brits tend to trust websites that end in .gov.uk (80%), .co.uk (68%), .org.uk (65%), and .com (60%).

By contrast, very few trust websites ending in .tv (10%), .biz (4%), .io (4%) and .mobi (2%). In fact, between 32% and 44% of Brits actively distrust websites with these domains. There are more than three million websites using one of these domain names, and the results suggest they could all be in danger of putting off potential visitors.

Surprisingly, only 42% of Brits trust .ac.uk websites, which are primarily used by British universities. However this is likely due to a lack of familiarity, with only 58% of people saying they’ve ever come across such an .ac.uk website, compared to the more than 90% who have ever visited each of the more trusted domains.

Indeed, .ac.uk websites are much more trusted than .net websites (32%), even though people are more likely to found themselves on a .net website at some point (81%).

Agency roles boom as businesses outsource marketing 

Marketing roles within agencies increased 35% year-on-year to March 2018, according to the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo).

The news comes as organisations increasingly look towards outsourcing, reveals the trade body, which also revealed that the number of marketing vacancies as a percentage of all available roles, increased by 1.68% year-on-year.

The insight, based on data from Vacancysoft, revealed that while Greater London has been the leading location for marketing vacancies with a combined total of 58%, the fastest growth was found in other regions, with the North West, West Midlands and North East seeing vacancy increases of 35%, 41% and 22% respectively.

Ann Swain, chief executive of APSCo, said: “The continued rise in marketing vacancies comes as no surprise. In the digital age investment in marketing is business imperative as organisations vie for the attention of increasingly fragmented audiences. No longer confined to big business, now even relatively small companies are investing in building brand awareness to boost revenues.

“Rather than bring talent in-house, many companies are choosing to outsource to focus on core business, solve capacity issues, cut costs and bring in expert skills to enhance service quality.

“Equally, in terms of geography, significant vacancy growth outside of London is not unexpected. The North West and Midlands are well established regional hubs for creative skillsets, with Salford for example, home to MediaCityUK and other specialist agencies.”

UK consumers ‘demanding more detailed, personalised answers from brands’

Ninety-four per cent of UK consumers say personalised answers will make them more loyal – with 84% switching to competitors if responses disappoint, according to Eptica research.

Despite this, brands are failing to deliver the information that consumers need – 86% say they are unhappy with the responses they receive across every channel, while 70% complain that they get inconsistent answers between channels.

Those are the headline findings of the 2018 Eptica Knowledge Management Study, which found that consumers have rising expectations when it comes to getting information and answers from brands – and that companies are struggling to meet their needs:

  • 91% of consumers say they are annoyed when questions aren’t answered satisfactorily
  • 88% want greater transparency from brands
  • 75% say customer service agents don’t have the information needed to answer their queries
  • 65% have more complex, detailed questions compared to 5 years ago

“The power of knowledge has never been more important to brands, it is essential for deploying artificial intelligence and Natural Language Processing to automate customer engagement as well as to empower agents,” said Olivier Njamfa, CEO and Co-Founder at Eptica. “As our research shows, not meeting customer expectations will directly impact your bottom line. Companies need to take a holistic approach to customer service knowledge, using AI to make their knowledge work for them, ensuring that consumers get the right answers, whether via self-service, a chatbot, or even the phone.”

With websites often the first point of call for information, consumers want to be able to find answers quickly and with minimum effort. Over nine in ten (91%) become frustrated if they cannot rapidly find an answer online. 90% want to be able to find the answer without searching through multiple locations or leaving the page they are on to find it, showing the need for effective web self-service solutions. 65% of consumers say they’ll pick up the phone if they can’t get an online answer, adding to their frustration, and also increasing costs for the brand.

A full report, including the study results, graphics and best practice recommendations for brands to transform how they use knowledge within customer experience is available at https://www.eptica.com/kmbl.

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