Marketing professionals from large and medium-sized companies appear to agree that audience targeting is a top priority in their marketing strategy performance. However, a report [download page] from Nielsen shows that these marketers differ when it comes to other tactics that they consider to be top priorities.
When asked to prioritize tactics for their marketing strategy performance, 39% of marketers from medium-sized companies (<$10M marketing budget) and 35% of those from large companies (>$10M marketing budget) listed audience targeting as their #1 priority. From there, some differences in priorities are present. For instance, 29% of marketers from large companies cited audience reach as the top priority, compared to 16% of those from medium-sized companies. On the other hand, some 13% of medium-sized companies consider personalization the top priority, while a mere 2% of large companies agree. This suggests that brand marketing is a higher priority for larger companies, while performance marketing may be more of a priority for smaller ones.
Separately, a plurality of marketers from both groups agree that customer acquisition is their top marketing objective (medium: 42%; large: 41%). Customer retention, despite becoming more important during the pandemic for some companies, ranked #3 for both medium-sized (20%) and large (16%) companies.
In reference to the pandemic, 6 in 10 (59% of) large companies had to adapt their marketing mix spend a lot or significantly as a result of COVID-19, while only 4 in 10 (41% of) medium-sized companies had to do so. Unsurprisingly, 79% of Travel and Tourism companies had to adapt their marketing mix spend a lot or significantly. This adaptation was not as prevalent in industries such as Retail (44%), FMCG/CPG (41%) and Technology (32%).
The continuing pandemic has also led a majority of companies to increase their ad budgets in areas such as social media, search and video (online and mobile).
And, when it comes to investing in martech, close to half (46%) of large companies plan to increase their spend in the next 12 months, while one-quarter of medium-sized companies will also increase their investment.
The full report can be found here.
About the Data: Findings are based on a Q4 2020 survey of 260 marketing professionals.
