Stark Contrasts in Technology Priorities for U.S. and International Marketers, Marketo Survey Finds

• Over half (57 percent) of all respondents in the U.S. believe predictive analytics will be the primary technology they leverage in order to best engage with their customers, compared to only 11 percent of international marketers
• Half of U.S. marketers (50 percent) believe their customers will be utilizing machine learning next year, while only a quarter (25 percent) of international marketers believe their customers will be using machine learning
• As marketers continue to prove demonstrable value and ROI, they cite reporting and analytics as a critical need, with 37 percent of everyone surveyed listing it as a top priority; interestingly, however, U.S. marketers feel more strongly about this need than their international counterparts (42 percent vs. 34 percent)
• 31 percent of international marketers believe IoT would be the primary channel for interacting with customers in 2017, while only 16 percent of U.S. marketers believe the same

"With a complex digital landscape, marketers are challenged with staying above the noise and making sense of an unprecedented amount of data, so it's no surprise that predictive analytics top their list for 2017," said Chandar Pattabhiram, CMO, Marketo. "As emerging technologies like IoT and virtual reality are increasingly adopted by consumers and businesses – bringing massive data volumes with them – we'll see the need for behavior-driven analytics continue to grow."

While marketers at large recognize the opportunity these new touchpoints present, respondents identify the need for new tools and technologies to manage these relationships, instead of new training, as essential for success. The report finds that 37 percent of marketers feel better reporting and analytics to make sense of all the data would be the key to successfully maintaining customer relationships, while 33 percent say they require a platform to keep up with the speed and volume of interactions. Only 12 percent of respondents think digital training or education would be required for success.

U.S. vs. International Marketers
The survey also identifies where American marketers' priorities overlapped with their global counterparts and where they diverged. Overall, American marketers are more pessimistic about the impact of new touchpoints on their engagement with customers, with only 48 percent saying they are excited compared to 62 percent of marketers around the world. More than a quarter (26 percent) of U.S. respondents feel they don't have a handle on existing touch points, juxtaposed with only 14 percent of international marketers reporting the same concern. This is likely due to the fact that 26 percent of U.S. marketers report a need for better cross-channel communication, critical to managing a multitude of touchpoints, compared with only 15 percent of international marketers.  

For more on the results of the Future Technology Survey results, click here.

About Marketo
Marketo provides the leading engagement marketing software and solutions designed to help marketers develop long-term relationships with their customers - from acquisition to advocacy. Marketo is built for marketers, by marketers, and is setting the innovation agenda for marketing technology. Marketo puts Marketing First. Headquartered in San Mateo, CA, with offices around the world, Marketo serves as a strategic partner to large enterprise and fast-growing small companies across a wide variety of industries. To learn more about Marketo's Engagement Marketing Platform, LaunchPoint partner ecosystem, and the vast community that is the Marketo Marketing Nation, visit www.marketo.com.

SOURCE Marketo, Inc.