Survey: 71% of B2B Marketers Say their Digital Ads Fail to Achieve Benchmarks

B2B organizations are reportedly investing more than half of their overall marketing budgets in digital, but new research has discovered that their efforts may be coming up short of expectations.

The “Ad Waste Survey” conducted by Demandbase and Wakefield Research found that 71 percent of B2B marketers claim that their company’s digital advertising frequently fails to achieve benchmarks. About 89 percent said their digital marketing mix is not optimized, and a different mix could yield better results.

“Most companies know that they are wasting a significant part of their digital ad dollars, but the problem is they don’t know which part,” said Peter Isaacson, chief marketing officer at Demandbase. “B2B marketers need to adjust their strategy away from B2C best practices and look at B2B-focused solutions that can deliver more effective advertising, personalization and sales programs to the specific accounts that will really deliver business results.”

Approximately 96 percent of respondents said that their digital ads reach a significant number of people outside of their target audience, resulting in budget waste. B2B marketers named measuring ROI their top challenge.

Establishing Digital Marketing ROI

Digital marketing has yielded new opportunities, but statistics show that organizations are struggling to prove its worth. The “2016 State of B2B Digital Marketing Report” from DemandWave discovered that measuring and proving the ROI of digital marketing efforts is the top challenge for marketers. About 29 percent cited this as their leading issue.

In 2015, approximately 24 percent said that proving the ROI of digital marketing tactics was their largest concern. Nearly 16 percent said it was a challenge back in 2014.