Marketers Plan to Shift More Budget to Content Marketing & Native Advertising

A new report released by PulsePoint and Digiday found that by 2017, content marketing and native ad budgets will grow 59 percent and 46 percent respectively; potentially outpacing search and social budgets. 83 percent of marketers surveyed believe that content marketing will grow more programmatic by 2016 as well.

Nearly 60 percent of agencies and brands consider content marketing to be “very significant” to their marketing strategies. However, professionals say that they still face numerous challenges in terms of utilizing this tactic.

Newscred CEO Shafqat Islam, says about content marketing, “Regardless of the size of your business or who you sell to, you need to be absorbing best practices surrounding content marketing. Even if your budget looks smaller on paper, you’re still capable of reaching incredible content marketing highs as an organization.”

Fifty-five percent said that a lack of resources and budgets was holding back their content marketing progress. About 34 percent said their inability to target at scale was their largest problem, while 26 percent said proving the value of it was the number one challenge.

However, many people still see a bright future for content marketing. About 83 percent see it becoming programmatic by 2017. More than 60 percent say they see more of their budget shifting toward content marketing over the next two years.

Projecting a Budget Increase

In January 2015, Forrester Research published a report that showed that 51 percent of B2B marketers expected to see a budget increase within the next 12 months. About 48 percent said they were planning to put more money into digital marketing, while 45 percent they were going to invest additional funds in content marketing.

At the time, only 8 percent of respondents said that they expected to see their marketing budgets decrease in 2015.