The 2015 State of Marketing Automation: The 33 Statistics You Need to Know

Over the past two years the internet has been swamped with articles about why and how marketing automation is going to change the world.

And don’t get me wrong, it is changing the business world one company at a time.

But I’m not going to bore you with another article telling you why you should implement a marketing automation system.

Instead I’m simply going to prove it with some good old, up-to-date statistics.

Let’s start with a definition of marketing automation:

Marketing Automation is software that allows your business to nurture leads and convert them into customers through personalized, behavior-triggered content. It allows marketers to automate tasks to improve efficiency and speed while also measuring results.

Now that that’s covered, let’s begin.

Adoption

---

1. 60% of companies turning over at least $500m, 10% of companies turning over $20-$500m, 5% of companies turning over $5-$20m and 3% of companies turning over less than $5m have adopted marketing automation. ( Raab Associates, 2014)


2. Only 38% of those that have marketing automation use advanced tactics like progressive profiling. (Webmarketing 123, 2015)

Quick tip: What’s progressive profiling?

Progressive profiling allows marketers to ask for information incrementally from leads rather than collecting it all at once. On their first visit you will collect basic information such as an email address, but with each subsequent interaction you gain more and more information allowing your sales team to more accurately qualify leads and have more effective conversations.

1. 56% of companies use an email marketing provider. This is a significant as companies that use email marketing are 75% or more likely to be purchasers of marketing automation software over the next year. ( Venture Beat, 2014)


2. Marketing automation will be amongst the most piloted marketing technologies of 2015. ( Salesforce, 2015).


3. The industries with the highest marketing automation adoption rates are:
   
   
   
   • Software & Internet
   
   
   • Telecommuncations
   
   
   • Computer & Electronics
   
   
   • Health & Pharmaceuticals
   
   
   • Business Services ( Mintigo, 2014)
   
   
   
   

Useage and Challenges

---

1. 54% of marketers that hadn’t implement Marketing Automation said it was part of their plan, but they have other elements in need of more immediate attention. 21% said that the cost structures where prohibitive. ( Redeye and TFM&A Insights, 2014)


2. 85% of B2B marketers using a marketing automation platform feel that they’re not using it to its full potential. ( SiriusDecisions, 2014)


3. Only 26% of B2B marketing automation users have fully adopted their system. ( Customer Experience Matrix, 2013)


4. 38% of marketing automation users were actively considering switching marketing automation systems in the coming year. ( Venture Beat, 2014)


5. Nearly one in four respondents found marketing automation systems too complex to be used effectively. ( B2B Online)


6. 44% of marketers are not fully satisfied with their marketing automation systems, the top 3 reasons being that the software takes too long to implement, is difficult to learn and is too expensive. (Autopilot, 2015)


7. 64% of CMOs have no formal process to manage their marketing automation. ( Fathom, 2013)


8. 76% of CMOs list high-end lead generation as their biggest marketing automation challenge. (Fathom, 2013)


9. The most commonly used marketing automation features are email marketing (89%), lead nurturing (84%), integrations with other software (CRM, mobile, social media, etc) for centralising customer intelligence (80%) and cross-channel campaign management (82%) ( Regalix, 2014)

Features and Criteria

---

1. 63% of survey respondents indicate that the ability to set measurable objectives for each of their campaigns is the biggest value driver of marketing automation. ( Gleanster, 2013)


2. CMOs at top-performing companies indicate that their most compelling reason for implementing marketing automation is to increase revenue (79%) and to get higher quality leads (76%). ( Gleanster, 2013)


3. 86% of marketers said “ease of use” was the most important criterion when choosing a marketing automation platform. ( Regalix, 2014)

Benefits

---

1. B2B marketers who implement marketing automation software increase their sales pipeline contribution by an average of 10%. ( Forrester Research, 2014)


2. The #1 benefit of marketing automation according to B2B marketers is the ability to generate more and better quality leads. ( Pepper Global, 2014)


3. Nurtured leads produce, on average, a 20% increase in sales opportunities versus non-nurtured leads. (DemandGen Report, 2014)


4. Marketing automation drives a 14.5% increase in sales productivity and a 12.2% reduction in marketing overhead. ( Nucleus Research, 2014)


5. Companies that excel in lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost per lead. ( Forrester Research, 2014)


6. 75% of companies using marketing automation see ROI in just 12 months. ( Focus Research, 2013)


7. 78% of successful marketers say that marketing automation is most responsible for improving revenue contribution. ( The Lenskold Group, 2013).


8. Businesses that use marketing automation to nurture prospects experience a 451% increase in qualified leads. ( The Annuitas Group, 2014)


9. 67% of marketing automation-users listed the technology as “very effective/effective. ( Salesforce, 2015)


10. While companies using blast email software still generate more leads than those who use nothing at all, marketers using automation software generate 2X the number of leads than those using blast email software and are perceived by their peers to be 2X as effective at communicating. ( Autopilot, 2015)


11. Successful lead nurturing breeds educated, gratified customers who channel their satisfaction into their purchase sizes, making 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads. ( Kapost, 2014)


12. 63% of companies that are outgrowing their competitors use marketing automation. ( Lenskold and Pedowitz, 2013)


13. B2C marketers who take advantage of automation including everything from cart abandonment programs to birthday emails, have seen conversion rates as high as 50%. ( eMarketer, 2013)


14. Companies that use marketing automation are 3 times more likely than companies without automation to track and attribute their content-marketing efforts to multiple touchpoints (36% to 11%). ( Lenskold and Pedowitz, 2013)


15. 54% of marketers who have not yet implemented marketing automation cite lack of budget as a major obstacle preventing implementation. ( Regalix, 2014)


16. Marketers who have adopted marketing automation suggest that the biggest benefits are:
    
    
    
    • Taking repetitive tasks out of marketers hands, so they can work on other projects (36%)
    
    
    • Better targeting their prospects and existing customers (30%)
    
    
    • Improving customer experience (10%)
    
    
    • Better email marketing (9%)
    
    
    • Reduction of human error (8%)
    
    
    • Lead management (4%)
    
    
    • Multichannel marketing (3%) ( Lenskold and Pedowitz, 2013)
    
    
    
    

Conclusion

---

Are you convinced yet? Theoretically and statistically marketing automation is where we are headed.

And while adoption rates may not be soaring rapidly, it’s clear that they are growing in every industry. As marketing automation gets more affordable, more widely available and more valuable to all businesses, we can expect it to become even more ingrained in marketing strategy.

- Written by Claire Grayston

Claire is a digital content marketer at Wishpond. When not racking her brain for new content, you’ll find her hiking or snowboarding the local mountains.

The 2015 State of Marketing Automation: The 33 Statistics You Need to Know