Two-thirds (65%) of US tech marketers say they’ve put more focus on performance marketing since the start of the pandemic, per a recent Shaped By report [download page], which looks at how marketing changed during the pandemic.
The survey of 200 marketers from leading US and UK tech companies finds that, during the pandemic, not only did US tech marketers shift their priorities more towards performance marketing, but many also made design and creativity (64%), demand and lead generation (60%), brand (56%) and market research (53%) more of a priority. Another 56% say they prioritized internal communications more since the pandemic; however, other research reveals that this is still a challenge within many organizations.
Account-based marketing has also been made more of a priority by 57% of US tech marketers surveyed. In fact, a previous report from Market Resource Partners found that the pace of ABM efforts increased for a majority of marketers since the pandemic.
These priority shifts may be connected to the changes in audience behaviors over the last year. Both enterprises and small-to-mid-sized enterprises (SME) marketers say they’ve seen differences in what ads and content their audience is responding to (61% of enterprises; 50% of SME). A sizable share of both groups also say their ability to get leads has increased (72%; 49%), as has their ability to convert leads (57%, 55%). About two-thirds of enterprise marketers say that they have seen an increase in subscription or product renewals, while 44% of SMEs have seen the same.
Since the pandemic, some marketers took the opportunity to experiment with some channels for the first time. To fill the void left by the cancellation of in-person events, many marketers headed online. For some, this was the first time they had experimented with webinars (26%) and online events (24%). Others experimented with a few tried-and-true methods like radio ads (23%) and newspaper (21%), while 1 in 5 experimented with online ads for the first time.
The full report can be found here.
About the Data: Findings are based on US respondents from a survey of 200 marketers from leading tech companies in the US and UK.
