Seven of 10 companies plan to increase 2015 search marketing budgets: According to a just released gShift survey, 70% percent of survey respondents indicated search marketing budgets will increase in 2015, while 25 percent said budgets will stay the same and only five percent claimed their search marketing budgets will decrease.
Any snags?
Digital marketers struggle with measuring performance, results and outcomes of digital marketing efforts: Only 10% said they can measure their digital marketing efforts and investments through the entire sales funnel. Also, 50%of digital marketers are measuring digital marketing campaign results by tracking leads and conversions, 35% measure traffic and clicks and roughly 5% aren’t not measuring results at all.
What’s the hang up?
Digital marketers are still not thinking mobile-first: Just less than 50% of the survey respondents acknowledged that they incorporated mobile strategies into their search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. A staggering 30% said they weren’t even considering mobile use in their search marketing strategies.
“Measuring performance and integrating mobile strategies is an ongoing challenge for most digital marketers. With these survey findings, it is safe to say measuring performance, results and outcomes of digital marketing efforts and investments is still something all digital teams struggle with at some level,” said Krista LaRiviere, CEO and co-founder of gShift. “This represents a significant opportunity for the industry to apply strategic, tactical and technical tools to measure performance and help prove the value of digital marketing investments.”