Survey: Marketers are Dedicating More of Their Budgets Toward Digital

As marketers look ahead to 2018, more of them are finding that they may dedicate a large portion of their budgets to digital.

In the “Global Digital Outlook Study” from SoDA and Forrester, nearly half of surveyed marketers (43 percent) said that they intend to increase their budgets for digital marketing in 2017/18. About half of survey respondents also said that they currently spend 50 percent or more of their marketing budget on digital initiatives.

Investing in digital can also give marketers a competitive edge, according to the data. About 78 percent now agree that “agencies with digital roots are becoming more likely to ‘lead’ among companies’ various agency partners.” This is compared to 77 percent who agreed with the same statement in 2016, and 76 percent that agreed in 2015.

Approximately 89 percent of client-side marketers believe their companies are “very” or “somewhat” innovative in terms of delivering digital initiatives.

B2B Marketers and Digital Tactics

At the beginning of 2017, B2B marketers also predicted that large portions of their budgets would go toward digital initiatives.

According to the “2017 State of B2B Digital Marketing” report from DemandWave, 38 percent of B2B marketers believed that more than 60 percent of their overall marketing budgets would go toward digital efforts.

Overall, 91 percent expected their digital marketing budgets to increase or stay the same in 2017. Email (73 percent) and organic search (70 percent) were yielding the most leads for B2B marketers at the time of the report. Both of them (66 percent each) were driving the most revenue.