CMOs Plan to Increase Social Media Spend Over the Next 5 Years

The February 2015 edition of the “CMO Survey,” published by Duke University, shows that CMOs plan to spend an average of 13.5 percent of their budget on social media marketing over the next 12 months, a percentage that’s expected to increase to 22.4 percent within the next five years.

At the moment, B2B product marketers spend 9.3 percent of their budget on social media, while B2B service marketers invest 9.6 percent of it on the same efforts. That being said, B2B CMOs see these percentages rising to approximately 12.6 percent and 14.3 percent respectively over the next 12 months.

By 2020, they will be spending a minimum of 20 percent of their budget on social media marketing. However, research shows that B2B marketers are still unsure of how social networking benefits their companies.

Uncertainty Surrounding Social Media Marketing

The 2015 State of Digital Marketing report released by Web Marketing 123 shows that only 17 percent of B2B marketers can exhibit ROI when it comes to social media.

About 66 percent of respondents said that they could provide ROI with email, while 37 percent cited paid search. SEO came in third place with 23 percent of the responses from marketers.

Despite the fact that ROI seems to be hard to prove, B2B marketers appear to know which social sites are helping them drive revenue. About 37 percent of respondents said that LinkedIn is the best channel for driving B2B revenue, while 20 percent of people cite Facebook.

A total of 46 percent of respondents said they weren’t sure which social website helps their overall bottom line.