BCA

From World Advertising Research Center

Most major brands in the US are likely to heighten their focus on platforms such as social media and mobile this year, but concerns over measurement remain for many companies.

Datran, the digital marketing specialist, surveyed 5,000 marketing executives drawn from Fortune 500 companies, leading publishers and prominent advertising and media agencies.
It found that there was “significant optimism” among its panel regarding prospective communications expenditure levels this year, following on from a decline in budgets in 2009.

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From eMarketer.com

Quantifying returns needs most improvement

 Mobile is at least somewhat important to the strategy of more than three-quarters of marketers in North America, according to a January 2010 survey by R2integrated. But barriers to mobile campaigns remain.

The greatest obstacle, the survey found, was difficulty in developing the business case for mobile campaigns, followed by inability to measure ROI and a lack of a mobile component to the strategic marketing road map.

Asked what the most critical area of improvement was in mobile, 43% of respondents said quantifying ROI—the top response.

Awareness and leads are key goals

Respondents said the main goals of their mobile campaigns were raising company awareness and generating leads. To that end, marketers were most likely to measure their success by an increase in customers or sales.

“It appears that 2010 will be a year of experimentation and education on mobile marketing as marketers struggle to come to terms with its practicality and ROI,” said Matt Goddard, co-founder and CEO of R2integrated, in a statement. “This shouldn’t suggest that marketers ought to table their mobile marketing plans, but that they should pay considerable attention to how they can connect the dots back to driving revenue.”

Mobile website development important focus

Most respondents reported that they would spend less than 15% of their budgets over the next year on mobile, though about one-quarter would spend between 15% and 30%. More than one-half were focused on mobile Website development, while 40% used apps for their campaigns.

The marketers surveyed considered iPhone and BlackBerry the most important platform for mobile development. Consumers may be warming up to Android, but only 7% of respondents to the R2integrated survey thought it was “very important.”

To see complete data charts, go to emarketer.com. Printed with permission of eMarketer.