Managing Digital Marketing Smart Insights

Managing Digital Marketing in 2017
Best practices for integrating digital technology, marketing and advertising to

fuel business growth
Authors: Dr Dave Chaffey and Robert Jones, SmartInsights.com
Part of the Digital Marketing Strategy and Planning Toolkit

Contents
Executive summary..........................................................................3
Introduction.......................................................................................6
1. Review digital marketing capabilities and

implement digital transformation.................................................. 10
2. Developing Integrated Strategies and Plans for

Digital Marketing.............................................................................14
3. Investing in Digital Marketing in 2017.......................................20
4. Innovation And Optimising Digital Marketing..........................23
Appendix: Methodology.................................................................25

Smart Insights (Marketing Intelligence) Limited. Please go to www.smartinsights.com to feedback or access our other guides. 2
Executive summary
This research from Smart Insights and Technology for Marketing (TFM) explores
approaches businesses use to plan and manage their investments in digital marketing.
Findings and recommendations are grouped in 5 areas aimed at improving the commercial
contribution of digital marketing for businesses.
1. Digital marketing capabilities and transformation

The majority of the 609 companies surveyed are still actively working on transformation of
their digital marketing capabilities either by planning a transformation program or already
working on it, however nearly 4 in 10 (37%) have no plans to run a digital transformation
program. 33% are planning to run a program (similar to our 2016 report, which was at
34%) and 21% have started within the last two years. Less than 1 in 10 (9%) have a digital
transformation program already in place.
Good practice: Audit your digital marketing capabilities and create a roadmap for
digital transformation to improve capabilities over the medium to long-term. Digital
transformation isnt a quick process so its best to plan ahead.
2. Digital marketing strategy and planning

In business, its recognised that plans help companies to prioritise, set goals and allocate
resources to meet targets. Yet a planned approach often isnt regularly followed in digital
marketing or marketing:
Over 4 in 10 (44%) of businesses surveyed do not have a defined digital plan or

strategy, although they are active in digital marketing.
Likewise, nearly half (49%) dont have a clearly defined marketing strategy.
Good practice: Dont just execute! Create a long-term integrated digital strategy
and plan aligning with marketing and business priorities.

Executive summary
3. Improving integration with digital transformation

programmes
Integration was a challenge in our 2016 report and its still a challenge, however 3 in
10 (32% are actively trying to integrate digital and traditional marketing activities, with
another 3 in 10 (29%) also saying they have limited integration. 14% say they are fully
integrated but 13% say they have no integration at all. Here at Smart Insights were
always working to promote digital and traditional marketing integration.
Good practice: Create a single multichannel marketing communications plan

rather than two separate plans. A separate digital marketing transformation plan
may be useful to create a long-term roadmap and resourcing plan for digital
channels.
4. Investing in digital marketing in 2017

The research focused on discovering which channels marketers rated as delivering the
greatest ROI, this being the most critical metric for most marketing departments, and key
to justifying further spend. The highest ROI was for SEO followed by Email marketing
(including marketing automation) and content marketing, which is now being seen as
providing a high ROI for marketers.
Good practice: With the diversity of paid, owned and earned media, its important
to focus resources and optimisation on core channels that drive value.
5. Innovation and optimising digital marketing

Digital media presents the opportunity of being able to test different variations to find
the best performing method for highest return.. Most respondents are using customer
personas (53%), customer journey mapping (52%) and AB testing (48%). Desktop
websites and Emails were the forms of digital media most likely to have optimization tests
carried out on them, with social media not far behind. Mobile (mobile sites and mobile
apps) lag behind, with most marketers not doing any specific optimization on mobile.
This research also found that the most commonly adopted marketing technologies
are email marketing and marketing automation, SEO and social media management
technologies. AB/ MVT platforms are not used by most marketers.
Good practice: You cant compete if you update your website or your
communications approaches every few years... Create a plan for Always-on

Executive summary
optimisation of digital media and integrated customer experiences. By having a

testing plan it ensures regular improvements to your website, communications and
overall marketing.

Introduction
The need for managing digital transformation

Digital media and technology are no longer new, indeed its now more than 25 years
since Sir Tim Berners Lee created the World Wide Web. Yet, over this time we have
seen huge developments in digital media and marketing technology to provide new
ways for businesses to communicate across the customer lifecycle.
This visual, structured around the Smart Insights RACE framework, shows some of the
many ways available to communicate with prospects and customers. These include
paid, owned and earned media integrating with a web, mobile, email or in-store based
experience. Within each of these activities there are many options for targeting, for
example within social media there are paid and organic options across all the 7 main
social networks (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Pinterest, Twitter and
YouTube). This complexity is hinted at by our members digital media cheatsheet1 where
we log all the main targeting options across these platforms.
This visual shows the opportunities for delivering more relevant, more effective
marcomms across the customer lifecycle. It also suggests the complexity of options
Smart Insights: Digital Media Cheatsheet

1

Introduction
and the challenges of integration. In this report, well see that many businesses are
still at an early stage of harnessing the potential of digital media and technology. By
reviewing common practices and following the strategy recommendations we hope that
this report will help you identify new opportunities to exploit the range of digital media
and technology we explore.
Research aim and methodology

At Smart Insights we believe that successful marketers look beyond chasing every latest
technology innovation, instead developing a more strategic, yet agile, managed approach
based on optimising communications for key customer touchpoints. So, in this research
we wanted to go beyond reviewing the digital marketing tactics deployed and explore the
strategic approaches businesses take to manage the transformation needed to improve
the commercial contribution of digital marketing integrated with all marketing activities.
To achieve this aim we surveyed Smart Insights members who are based around the
world and attendees of the TFM and eCommerce Expo event who are based in the UK
and Europe. The survey was completed online during April 2017. Thank you if you took
the time to share your experiences of digital marketing.
There were 609 respondents, with the majority were from the United Kingdom or the
United States. Respondents were marketing managers of various levels of seniority.
Further details on the sample frame are available at the end of the report.
About Smart Insights

Smart Insights provides actionable marketing resources to help businesses succeed
online. More than 150,000 Basic members use our blog, sample marketing templates
and twice weekly Digital Marketing Essentials newsletter to follow best practices and
keep up-to-date with the developments that matter in digital marketing.
Thousands of Individual and Business members from over 80 countries use our premium
planning and management toolkits, templates, guides and video courses to map, plan
and manage their marketing using the Smart Insights RACE Planning framework.

Introduction
RECOMMENDED RESOURCES
Strategy development and planning templates
We have developed a series of tools for Expert members to help them plan:
Digital strategy toolkit. This template contains a full workbook to create a
digital marketing strategy to Reach-Act-Convert and Engage your audience.
7 Steps Digital Strategy guide and course. Step-by-step guidance.
Example digital marketing plans. An example online marketing plan and
blank template using the Smart Insights RACE Planning framework.
About our partners Technology for Marketing (TFM), taking

place 27-28 September at Olympia, London
TFM is the UKs only marketing technology event, dedicated to helping marketers quickly
and impartially determine the most relevant technologies for their business needs.
TFM 2017, taking place 27-28 September in Olympia, London, will educate, inspire and
facilitate the adoption of new martech to give marketers the competitive advantage.
Visitors will be wowed by experiential content, see killer keynotes from top brands, and
receive specialist training and tech demonstrations tailored to their needs.
eCommerce Expo is the only event dedicated to the entire breadth of ecommerce,
helping visitors streamline business processes, remain agile and keep pace with
the latest trends, all helping to optimise the customer journey. Co-located with TFM,
and taking place 27-28 September at Olympia, London, the event offers high quality
thought leadership and networking, and covers all aspects of the online transactional
process from marketing, web-platforms and payments through to delivery and
customer service.
For more information and to register to attend for free, visit technologyformarketing.co.uk.
About the report author

Dr Dave Chaffey is co-CEO and co-founder of digital marketing
management advice site Smart Insights. He is author of 5
bestselling books on Ecommerce including Digital Marketing:
Strategy, Implementation and Practice and was recognised by the
Chartered Institute of Marketing in 2004 as one of 50 marketing
gurus worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing.

Introduction
Robert Jones Is Research Analyst and Member Content Co-ordinator

at Smart Insights, responsible for the content strategy of all guides
and resources and also responsible for producing Smart Insights
digital marketing research reports. He works on member research,
improving user experience of the Smart Insights site, our partner
research reports and helps produce our member content. He is a
member of the Market Research Society (MRS) and has over 5
years experience in Insight, UX and Marketing.
Research findings and recommendations

In common with all resources for members in our Smart Insights Digital Marketing Library,
we want this report to be practical and actionable, to make a commercial difference
to your business. So, the results presented from this research are structured around
practical activities companies can use to follow a more strategic, planned approach to
digital marketing. Each section is based around questions the marketer can ask to review
and so improve his or her approach to managing digital marketing.
We hope you find this research and recommendations useful in reviewing and shaping
your use of digital marketing. If you have any comments or questions, do get in touch.
Dave Chaffey, SmartInsights.com, June 2017

1 Review digital marketing capabilities
and implement digital transformation
Does your company have the right capabilities in place to

make the most of digital marketing?
Whether companies are able to deliver on the potential of digital channels to contribute
value depends on whether they have the right capabilities in place across the company
for all the digital touchpoints that need to be managed.
We asked companies to rate their digital capabilities from an initial level, 1 through to an
advanced optimized level of 5 by referencing the capability assessment shown on the
next page. Results show that the majority of companies rate their capabilities at lower
levels of 1 to 3 on this scale of 1 to 5.
AIMING FOR DIGITAL Take your digital marketing to the next level with our
capability assessment. Use our visual checklist to audit
MARKETING EXCELLENCE how well your business or clients are exploiting their digital
marketing and then plan how to take it to the next level.
FIVE. Optimized
FOUR. Quantified
THREE. Defined
Digital
TWO. Managed
Capability ONE. Initial Business-aligned
Agile strategic
approach
Defined vision and strategy and roadmap
Prioritised marketing strategy
A. Strategic activities
No strategy
Approach
B. Performance Quality-based KPIs Value-based KPIs

Volume-based KPIs Lifetime-value KPIs
Improvement No KPIs Last click attribution Weighted attribution
No dashboards Continuous CRO
Process Business dashboards Ad hoc CRO
C. Management Verbal support, but Sponsorship and Active championing and Integral part of
Limited
Buy-in inadequate resourcing increased investment approriate investment strategy development
D. Resourcing Centralised hub and

Core skills centralised or Decentralisation and Balanced blend of
and No specific skills spoke
agencies reskilling marketing skills
Structure Dedicated resources
E. Data
Limited / no Separate data, tools Partially integrated Integrated systems Flexible approach to
and
customer database and IT services systems and data and 360o data sources optimize resources
Infrastructure
F. Integrated Integrated, Personalised,

Core push activities Integrated inbound Media optimized for ROI
Customer Not integrated Paid-Owned-Earned
synchronised approach and to maximize CLV
Communications media
G. Integrated Partially personalized Integrated, Personalized web, Full contexual

Desktop and mobile
Customer Website not integrated desktop and mobile mobile, email and social media personalized experiences
support, not personalized
Experience experience communications and recommendations
Developing Competent average Above-sector average Market leading

Laggard capability capability capability capability
Refine your Digital Marketing Strategy Check out our hub page http://bit.ly/smartstrategy for Join our Expert members to download digital marketing planning
with Smart Insights member toolkits. our free blog articles and planning template. templates and our 7 Step guides to digital strategy.

5 Importance
1 Investing in of
digital
digital
marketing
marketing
Results show that the majority of companies rate their capabilities at lower levels of 1 to
3 on this scale of 1 to 5. Integrated customer communications and integrated customer
experience are also mostly at the initial stage.
Maturity assessment for managing digital marketing

A. Strategic approach
24% 36% 22% 12% 6%
B. Performance Improvement process

24% 40% 23% 10% 3%
C. Management buy-in 22% 34% 25% 10% 9%
D. Resourcing and structure 19% 41% 23% 9% 8%
E. Data and infrastructure 22% 33% 30% 10% 5%
F. Integrated customer communications 30% 32% 20% 13% 5%
G. Integrated customer experience 30% 34% 22% 10% 4%
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
1 - Initial 2 - Managed 3 - Defined

4 - Quantified 5 - Optimized
Since digital marketing involves execution of many marketing processes and activities,
its useful to rate different types of capabilities by their current effectiveness as shown by
our capability review below. To download a larger version of the capability matrix go to
http://bit.ly/smarttransformation or use our interactive capability graders in the members
area.
Scoring your digital capabilities can help show colleagues your current use of digital
marketing and how far you need to go. This can help prioritisation of future improvements.
The weakest processes that are important for future improvement can be identified and
prioritised. Creating a roadmap is a great way to show that Digital Transformation is a
long-term journey and cant be achieved overnight, or without sufficient investment.

5 Importance
1 Investing in of
digital
digital
marketing
marketing
!
KEY STRATEGY RECOMMENDATION 1: BENCHMARK YOUR CAPABILITIES
Score your digital capabilities to benchmark and then analyse how you can
improve and to win the case for investment
Assess what your current capabilities are overall and for key digital channels
to communicate to colleagues where you need to improve. All Smart Insights
members can use our interactive benchmarks in the member area to review their
digital capabilities across the Smart Insights RACE Planning framework.
EXPERT VIEW AUDITING DIGITAL CAPABILITIES

Daniel Rowles, Digital Marketing Consultant and Trainer, Target Internet
I think the best practice of auditing digital capability is of huge significance

and this is inline with other findings around a lack of strategy and internal skills.
Organisations are just waking up to the need to step back and look at their digital
capability and assess what it is that is holding them back, and what they need
to change in order to make effective digital possible. The emergence of Digital
Transformation as a key issue that organisations are thinking about is great news.
Understanding the gap between where we are now and where we need to be is
essential.
Its surprising how many organisations are still dealing with the basics, but I
think this reflects back to need for digital capability auditing and the need for
organisational transformation. Without the fundamental building blocks in place
that will give the right environment for digital, no progress can be made. Many
marketers are spending their time battling with IT infrastructure issues or getting
management buy in, and this prevents the advancement of their digital marketing.
Adoption of digital transformation programmes
Organisations who recognise the importance of digital media and technologies in the
future and seek to accelerate the rate of change to integrating digital marketing into their
business create digital transformation programmes.
To find out the commitment to digital transformation we asked respondents about their
current adoption of digital transformation programmes.

5 Importance
1 Investing in of
digital
digital
marketing
marketing
The results, shown on the next page, show that nearly 8% have a digital transformation
in place for longer than two years and 2 in 10 (21%) have just started. Over 3 in 10 (33%)
are preparing to start their digital transformation program.
Relevance of Digital Transformation Programmes

Relevance of Digital Transformation Programmes
9% We have no plans to run a digital

transformation programme
We are planning to introduce a programme

37% within the next 12 months
21%
We have just started a digital transformation
programme (within the last 2 years)
We have had a digital transformation process

in place for 2 years
33%
Only a small percentage have had a programme in place for over two years. This
highlights that many businesses are still in a period of transitioning to being digital first,
and the process of digital transformation is far from finished. As with our previous report,
a significant proportion of organisations 4 in 10 (37%) have no intention to implement a
programme because they feel it is inappropriate for their type of business, for example,
startups and smaller businesses or businesses who are online pureplays.
Smart Insights Benchmarking Tools
We have developed a series of strategic tools to help companies review their
digital marketing and make the case for more investment in digital marketing:
Digital marketing audit / benchmark
A detailed spreadsheet based technique for assessing a company in 6 key
areas with an Ecommerce option (PRICE framework) available also
Competitor benchmarking tools
A recommended process and tools for comparing performance.
Business case template
Improvement needed can be justified through this template and the companion Ebook

2 Developing Integrated Strategies
and Plans for Digital Marketing
Is digital marketing based on a planned approach?

We believe that to gain the most from digital platforms, a structured, planned approach
based on a solid strategy will give the best results. Plans help businesses to prioritise,
set goals and resource at the right level to hit targets. Without structured plans, there is
a danger you will be subject to shiny object syndrome, always chasing your tail, as Jeff
Bezos of Amazon has referred to.
We found that a majority of organisations responding to the survey do use a planned

approach to digital marketing, but almost half still dont. More businesses than ever (in
our annual Managing Digital Marketing report) are integrating their approach and most do
have a plan in general. But almost half do not have a defined digital marketing strategy.
Does yourhave
Does your organisation organisation have
a clearly defined a clearly
digital defined
marketing strategy?
digital marketing strategy?
Yes - it's integrated into our

34% marketing strategy
Yes - it's defined in a separate
49% document
No - we are doing digital marketing,
but no defined strategy
17% Number of
Respondents
604

2 Developing strategies
Shockingly, nearly half of businesses dont have a digital marketing strategy, but they are
doing digital marketing. This seems to go along with a more general lack of planning since
44% do not have a marketing strategy. It seems that businesses are working campaign to
campaign, planning reactive digital marketing approaches rather than annual strategies.
!
KEY STRATEGY RECOMMENDATION 2: CREATE A DIGITAL PLAN
Create a specific digital marketing plan aligned with marketing strategy
To provide focus and direction for the future, create a detailed digital marketing
plan defining the digital channel strategy for each major market / proposition.
How should digital marketing and traditional marketing be integrated?

As discussed in the introduction, there is a risk that separate digital marketing plans
and teams lead to silos for digital marketing, so its important to think about how you
manage integration. The research shows marketers are making solid progress towards
integration, although few describe their approach as fully integrated.
Only 6% of companies thought their integration process was completely optimised. Yet
there is reason to be optimistic about the state of marketing integration. In our last survey
over 50% were satisfied with their integration, and again more than half are satisfied, with
14% fully integrated and 32% actively trying. Around 3 in 10 (29%) have limited integration.
How well integrated are your digital and

Howtraditional
well integrated are marketing activities?
your digital and traditional marketing activities?
Actively trying to integrate the two.

We are making solid progress in integrating 32%
digital and traditional marketing.
Limited integration. We use digital marketing,
but it isn't well integrated into overall strategy. 29%
Fully-integrated. Digital marketing is integrated

within the wider marketing plan but we're not optimising. 14%
Not integrated. Our use of digital marketing

is ad hoc and not integrated. 13%
Optimising. Full integration and processes

are reviewed for optimisation. 6%
Not applicable - we solely use digital

media and communications 6%
0% 10% 20% 30%

Integration requires a clear marketing or business strategy and plan also. The survey
results suggest that lack of a marketing plan in a substantial proportion of organisations
may make it difficult to align a digital plan against!
BEST PRACTICE TIP 1

Create a hierarchy of plans for integrated different timescales and activities
To help develop a more coherent approach to marketing planning, we suggest

you develop a hierarchy of plans as shown in the diagram below. Annual business
and marketing objectives can cascade into goals, objectives and KPIs for different
marketing activities on 90 day plans.

How should you go about optimising your customer journey?

We have seen how there is a major challenge for many marketers of creating integrated
strategies and communications plans. From a customer point-of-view there is also likely
to be a poor experience if their customer journeys are unclear or restricted by the inability
of brands to integrate their communications and experiences.
A focus on improving customer journeys by businesses can help resolve customer journey
issues, increase sales and conversions. Businesses are focusing more on customer and
user experience than ever, but still have a way to go.
In our customer persona toolkit we show how different techniques such as customer
persona development, customer journey analysis and content mapping can be used to
review and improve digital experiences in conjunction with conversion rate optimisation.
Since improving your customer journey can be one of the most effective way to boost online
leads and sales and bottom line. With that in mind, we asked respondents which techniques
their businesses were using to research and improve the effectiveness of their customer journey.
Last year AB testing was the most popular technique, but its brilliant to see how many
businesses are also embracing customer personas.
Number of
Which techniques do you use to research and improve Respondents
customer journey effectiveness? 583
0% 20% 40% 60%
Customer personas 53%

Customer journey mapping 52%
AB Testing 48%
Path analysis in analytics 32%
Website customer intent surveys 30%
Voice of Customer surveys,
e.g. Net Promoter Score 26%
Usability studies of digital experiences 23%
Multivariate testing 14%
Other 6%
Personas (53%) and customer journey mapping (52%) lead the way with. AB testing also
popular (48%). Yet surprisingly, only a quarter (26%) are using Net Promoter Score, which
is such a simple technique businesses can use to review customer satisfaction and focus

improvements. See our Quick Win on CSAT and NPS to see how to get up-to-speed1.
Usability studies are only used by 23% of businesses, which suggests businesses are not
fully embracing the benefits of user experience research to improve conversions and loyalty.
Marketing technologies used by businesses

Businesses have a range of marketing technology available to them, to aid personali-
zation, management and audit their marketing. With such a vast number of services
available marketers should put together an effective marketing stack of a variety of
platforms, which they use across their digital marketing.
Social media management (61%) and search management (65%) platforms were
implemented the most before 2017, but most (47%) are not using a full marketing cloud
solution. However, website personalization (35%) and full marketing cloud (33%) are the
most popular planned for future use.
Which technologies form part of your Martech stack?
Which technologies form part

Number of
Respondents
609
of your Martech stack?
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
AB or MVT
22% 13% 22% 39%
website testing platform
Ad management
31% 21% 23% 24%
(e.g. retargeting or Programmatic)
Collaboration tools -
35% 17% 14% 31%
employees and agency
Content or
20% 25% 17% 14%
commerce management
Full Marketing Cloud 10% 9% 33% 47%
Influencer outreach 18% 18% 27% 33%
Marketing Automation and

46% 28% 17% 7%
Email marketing
Search management
55% 25% 12% 8%
(SEO and/or AdWords)
Social media management

61% 22% 11% 5%
Website personalisation
24% 20% 35% 21%
In place before 2017 New/updated in 2017 Planning future update for 2018+
Not used / Not relevant
Smart Insights Quick Wins including CSAT and NPS

1

We have developed a series of tools to help Expert members plan:

digital marketing strategy to Reach-Act-Convert and Engage your audience over
the next year or in a 90-day planning period.
Marketing Technology Selection Guide: Our comrehensive guide guides
advice across more than 30 categories. This is an individual and business level
resource.

3 Investing in Digital Marketing
in 2017
Which are the most effective digital marketing channels to

invest in?
To choose the best level of investment in digital marketing requires an assessment of
which channels will produce significant volumes of leads and sales at an acceptable cost
per acquisition (CPA) for new customers. To find out which techniques most commonly
demand focus in 2017 we asked marketers to give their views on which channels for were
most cost-effective.
Digital marketing activities rated by ROI
Number of
Digital marketing activities rated by ROI Respondents

602
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) 15% 41% 32% 12%
Content marketing
17% 40% 30% 13%
Email marketing and

17% 43% 30% 10%
Marketing Automation
Paid Search Marketing (AdWords) 19% 37% 20% 24%
Social media (organic)

33% 39% 20% 8%
Social media (paid ads)

24% 36% 17% 23%
Website personalisation
18% 26% 16% 40%
Online PR and Outreach

28% 37% 15% 20%
Display advertising
26% 31% 10% 33%
including Programmatic
1 - Lowest ROI 3 - Medium ROI 5 - Highest ROI Don't use or N/A

3 Resourcing digital marketing
Considering the marketing activities with the highest ROI, marketers consider organic
search or SEO (32% rated highly for ROI), content marketing (30%) and email marketing
(30%) the most effective. This suggests that these techniques demand investment in
most businesses and optimization as explained in the next section. Paid techniques
such as AdWords (20%), social media ads (17%) and display including programmatic
(10%) were rated significantly lower. Earned media techniques such as online PR and
outreach (15%) and organic social media (20%) were also relatively low, however many
considered these medium ROI, so still worthwhile. It was surprising that only 16% rate
website personalization as high ROI, perhaps because of the cost of deploying these
services. Note that this had the highest rating of Dont use of N/A. Display advertising
including Programmatic was also highly rated in this category (33%).
Investment in marketing technology

We also asked businesses how they decide on significant new technology investments
finding that most make a business case (55%). Structured reviews (32%), requesting a
formal pitch (26%) and trials (20%) were also common.
Formal pitches appear to be requested less than ever, this used to be a common method,
however free trials are common and marketers more often need to submit a business
case in order to get budget. Its unclear whether the need for business cases slows down
the decision making process.
Techniques
Techniques used to used
decide onto decide
significant on significant
new technology investments new
technology investments
We typically make a business case with
55%
calculated cost/benefit for high cost martech
We evaluate our requirements against published

32%
features from vendors using a structured review
We require a formal pitch from a

26%
short-list of vendors
We evaluate return on technology

24%
investment 6 months+ after deployment
We trial 3 + examples in a live 'use-case' test 20%
We evaluate time to break even

18%
Number of
Other 3% Respondents
609
0% 15% 30% 45% 60%

To assess your investments in digital media we recommend you take a look at our
Content Distribution matrix.
BEST PRACTICE TIP 2

Review channel volume against ROI to select the best mix
You can plot volume of leads and sales for different digital media on the horizontal
axis against cost-effectiveness on a vertical axis. You should review specific ad
network placements such as AdWords remarketing or paid social media marketing
techniques. See our Content Distribution Matrix infographic for an example.
EXPERT VIEW ENCOURAGING MEASUREMENT OF EFFECTIVENESS

Philip Sheldrake, Author, the Business of Influence
Its striking that marketers can respond to survey questions about effectiveness
and admit simultaneously a paucity in measurement capability.
If they measure at all, the majority of marketing teams measure outputs in my
experience, not outcomes. Its far easier to measure outputs, but easy and useful
arent the same thing. If you measure simply what you can rather than what you
should, subsequent conclusions will be entirely a function of output measurability
than anything resembling strategic effectiveness.
How to encourage measurement of effectiveness? We must appeal to emotions
and character in order to have logic prevail. Every line manager understands the
emotional pressures of reporting to a higher up, and having answers is part and
parcel of good relations with the boss. Talk about the emotional power that comes
from confidence in good measurement and evaluation.
On the character front, distinguish between management (doing things right) and
leadership (doing the right things). Many managers aspire to lead, and that starts
with knowing the right things to do. Investing in understanding what works and what
doesnt is the right thing to do because it helps determine the right things to do.

4 Innovation And Optimising

Digital Marketing
Are marketers managing digital marketing activities continuously?

The opportunity to dynamically update and test digital media has always been claimed to
be one of its main benefits compared to traditional media, so we were interested to see to
what extent companies have processes in place to manage this continuously. The concept
of Always-on marketing has emerged to show a change in emphasis of investment in
marketing activities from burst marketing campaigns to generate awareness and response
to continuously driving demand for products and services as consumers search and review
products and services. Real-time marketing is also part of Always-on since marketers can
deliver more
Pleaserelevant content
rate your use thatoptimisation
of structured is being tests
discussed
to improvein social
these digitalmedia
marketingand by word-of-mouth.
activities
Please rate your use of structured optimisation Number of

Respondents
tests to improve these digital marketing activities 603
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Mobile
27% 22% 20% 9% 6% 16%
(Mobile visits and/or apps)
Content marketing
25% 29% 22% 8% 9% 7%
Social media marketing

18% 25% 22% 16% 13% 6%
Paid digital media 18% 16% 21% 12% 16% 17%
Landing pages 17% 25% 25% 14% 12% 7%
Email marketing and

Marketing Automation 16% 27% 23% 14% 12% 8%
Organic search (SEO)

16% 24% 25% 13% 15% 7%
Website (Desktop experience)

16% 23% 27% 17% 13% 4%
1 - No Optimisation 2 - Some limited testing 3 - Intermittent optimisation projects
4 - Structured, frequent tests 5 - Continuous optimisation Don't use or N/A

4 Skill development
Email and marketing automation are the most optimized, followed by digital media.
Overall amount of testing was varied but mobile apps and mobile websites suffers from
a lack of optimization, which is surprising as more people are using apps and mobile
devices for purchases.
As you can see below, our results from 2016 show that mobile optimization is getting
poorer, as currently mobile optimization stands at over 2 in 10 (22%), the lowest
oprimisation in this survey.
Website (Desktop experience) 2015- 30% 2016- 28%
Mobile (Mobile site and/or apps) 2015- 21% 2016- 21%
Landing pages 2015- 29% 2016- 28%
Email marketing 2015- 35% 2016- 34%
Social media marketing 2015- 29% 2016- 30%
Content marketing 2015- 28% 2016- 26%
Paid digital media 2015- 30% 2016- 22%
We hope you have found this report useful to compare against your approaches to digital
marketing and inform your investments.
Do let us know if you have any comments or questions via @SmartInsights or our
community.
We have developed a series of tools for Expert members to help them plan:
digital marketing strategy to Reach-Act-Convert and Engage your audience.
7 Steps Digital Strategy guide and course. Step-by-step guidance.
Example digital marketing plans. An example online marketing plan and
blank template using the Smart Insights RACE Planning framework.

Appendix
Methodology
The survey was completed online during April 2017. There were 609 respondents from
all over the world. The majority of respondents came from the UK and Europe and the
United States.
Types of business
Businesses respondents represented a wide range of sectors and sizes including Retail,
Financial services, Consumer brands, travel and public sector/education.
Respondents
Respondents all worked in marketing roles, but at various levels of seniority, from CEO
to assistant.
The breakdown of respondents roles was as follows
CEO / COO / President / Chairman: 10%
VP / Director: 5%
Owner / Proprietor: 8%
Head of department: 14%
Manager with staff: 21%
Manager without staff: 25%
Assistant:10%
Company activities were diverse with agencies, IT and retail the most important and
business-to-business represented over many other categories.

7 Appendix
Number of
Company Activity Respondents
608
0% 5% 10% 15%
Agency 15%
IT 10%
Retail 9%
Other 9%
Marketing / Media 8%
Consultancy / Management consultancy 8%
Manufacturing 8%
Public Sector / Government / Education 6%
Finance / Banking / Insurance 5%
Construction / Engineering / Automotive 4%
Travel, Venues & Leisure 4%
Hospitality & Leisure 2%
FMCG / Consumer brand 2%
Voluntary Sector / Charity 2%
Training provider 2%
Pharmaceuticals 1%
Transportation / Logistics 1%
Telecommunications 1%
Utilities 1%


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Managing Digital Marketing in 2017

Best practices for integrating digital technology, marketing and advertising to

Authors: Dr Dave Chaffey and Robert Jones, SmartInsights.com

Part of the Digital Marketing Strategy and Planning Toolkit

1. Review digital marketing capabilities and

2. Developing Integrated Strategies and Plans for

3. Investing in Digital Marketing in 2017.......................................20

4. Innovation And Optimising Digital Marketing..........................23

Managing Digital Marketing in 2017

1. Digital marketing capabilities and transformation

2. Digital marketing strategy and planning

Over 4 in 10 (44%) of businesses surveyed do not have a defined digital plan or

Managing Digital Marketing in 2017

3. Improving integration with digital transformation

Good practice: Create a single multichannel marketing communications plan

4. Investing in digital marketing in 2017

5. Innovation and optimising digital marketing

Managing Digital Marketing in 2017

optimisation of digital media and integrated customer experiences. By having a

Managing Digital Marketing in 2017

The need for managing digital transformation

Smart Insights: Digital Media Cheatsheet

Managing Digital Marketing in 2017

Research aim and methodology

About Smart Insights

Managing Digital Marketing in 2017

About our partners Technology for Marketing (TFM), taking

About the report author

Managing Digital Marketing in 2017

Robert Jones Is Research Analyst and Member Content Co-ordinator

Research findings and recommendations

Dave Chaffey, SmartInsights.com, June 2017

Managing Digital Marketing in 2017

Does your company have the right capabilities in place to

B. Performance Quality-based KPIs Value-based KPIs

D. Resourcing Centralised hub and

F. Integrated Integrated, Personalised,

G. Integrated Partially personalized Integrated, Personalized web, Full contexual

Developing Competent average Above-sector average Market leading

Managing Digital Marketing in 2017

Maturity assessment for managing digital marketing

B. Performance Improvement process

C. Management buy-in 22% 34% 25% 10% 9%

D. Resourcing and structure 19% 41% 23% 9% 8%

E. Data and infrastructure 22% 33% 30% 10% 5%

F. Integrated customer communications 30% 32% 20% 13% 5%

G. Integrated customer experience 30% 34% 22% 10% 4%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

1 - Initial 2 - Managed 3 - Defined

Managing Digital Marketing in 2017

EXPERT VIEW AUDITING DIGITAL CAPABILITIES

I think the best practice of auditing digital capability is of huge significance

Adoption of digital transformation programmes

Managing Digital Marketing in 2017

Relevance of Digital Transformation Programmes

9% We have no plans to run a digital

We are planning to introduce a programme

We have had a digital transformation process

Managing Digital Marketing in 2017

Is digital marketing based on a planned approach?

We found that a majority of organisations responding to the survey do use a planned

Yes - it's integrated into our

Managing Digital Marketing in 2017

How should digital marketing and traditional marketing be integrated?