39% of Marketers Intend to Use Marketing Automation for Demand Generation

Although email has helped many marketers drive leads in recent years, new research indicates that marketing automation may become a more important tool for building a robust pipeline.

DemandGen recently conducted the “2022 Demand Generation Benchmark Survey,” and statistics indicated that the majority of marketers (49%) are still utilizing email to drive leads into their pipeline. However, most respondents (39%) stated that they intend to leverage marketing automation at some point this year to accelerate their demand generation strategies.

“Though marketing automation isn’t new, it’s clear that marketers are still viewing it as something to test out,” wrote the authors of the report. “Similarly, intent signals are poised to become an even bigger part of demand gen strategies as organizations refine their focus on personalization and tailored content for accounts.”

In addition to deploying marketing automation, marketers intend to focus on social analytics (32%), account-based marketing (32%) and intent/signal data (31%) in the coming months.

The Difficulties of Leveraging Marketing Data

Data remains a critical component of demand generation, but previous research has suggested that many marketers are finding it difficult to leverage it.

Ascend2 published its “Using Data to Drive Demand” report, and statistics indicated that most marketers (58%) “moderately agree” that demand generation is significantly improved when a data-driven strategy is utilized. However, 72% say that their data-driven marketing strategy is only “somewhat successful” in terms of helping them meet their key objectives.

Measuring results (38%) remains the most challenging aspect of using data to drive demand, according to respondents.