The top 5 challenges for marketeers today

Marketing is one of the fastest moving disciplines of our time. It is not so easy to adapt to new trends and circumstances on an ongoing basis. Not least due to this, new challenges need to be mastered time after time. This is exactly what Kantar’s “Getting Media Right” report looks at every year. Initial insight was already presented at DMEXCO. Based on the report, we have summarized the most important challenges currently facing marketeers and how to solve them.

Marketing challenge: silo mindsets in companies

Marketing and sales are often not only separated physically within the company. The two departments hardly work together on other levels either. In some companies, they even tend to work against each other. However, both parties are needed to achieve good deals, especially in B2B. According to a study conducted by LinkedIn and the Content Marketing Institute, around 60 percent of the respondents believe that a company’s financial performance is severely impaired by non-cooperation between marketing and sales. As Kantar explains in its report, marketing itself also suffers from the familiar silo mindset. One in five advertisers does not have a comprehensive media strategy across all channels and platforms. The latter can easily be solved by developing a new media concept. After all, a uniform strategy not only reaches potential customers better, but can also save money by reducing costs.

Marketing challenge: lacking data (competence)

Data offers marketers almost infinite possibilities. It just has to be put in the right context. This is precisely the problem for many companies. Less than ten percent of marketers say they have all the data they need for comprehensive insight. Access to data is particularly important for this. Due to existing silos in companies, useful data is often scattered. The way to combat this is to develop a suitable data management strategy that brings together all the data in the company. Business intelligence or big data analytics solutions can help. The right solution can also be of great help when it comes to the correct evaluation of data for marketeers. According to Kantar, there is also a lack of specialist knowledge in this area. On average, just under 35 percent of marketers are not sure whether they can generate reports with suitable recommendations for action based on the collected data.

Marketing challenge: elimination of cookies

80 percent of marketers rely most on third-party data. However, this could become a problem in the future. This is because the European Court of Justice stipulates that every website is obliged to give users the option of deactivating cookies. This also applies to third-party cookies, which serve as a source of data for the respective third-party providers. This means that these providers will soon no longer be able to claim that their data is complete. Possible solutions for this problem could include contextual targeting, i.e. the extension of targeting to include hobbies or other preferences, as well as zero-party data. The latter offer the advantage that the data is not obtained in secret, but directly from users. This serves to prevent rejection by users and there is hardly any possibility of misinterpreting the data. In addition to this, the resulting transparency helps improve the relationships with one’s own customers. More about this can be found here in our Stories on “First & Third Party Data” in November.

Marketing challenge: lack of understanding of the target group

Reaching your target group now not only requires cookies, but comprehensive knowledge of who your customers really are. The majority of marketeers use programmatic targeting for this purpose. According to the “Getting Media Right” report, the number is around 80 percent. And this is a rising tendency. However, the report also shows that one in three marketers is not sure that their targeting will reach their target group at all. In addition to this, user-generated content is becoming increasingly important for companies, but only when it is placed in the right context. However, one third of the respondents stated that they could not correctly assess the context. We therefore have to drastically rethink how we can obtain information about our target group and existing customers. One possible approach: content marketing. Through continuity, patience and regular reviews, you can gain a lot of insight about your own users with the right content marketing strategy and thus fine-tune your own marketing.

Marketing challenge: measuring and documenting campaign successes

Analyses are often driven by ROI. Only about ten percent of respondents stated in the report that they did not take ROI into account when evaluating campaign success and marketing activities. However, emphasis is often placed on short-term success. Long-term success, on the other hand, is hardly taken into account if at all. Nevertheless, around half of the marketeers say that a balance between short-term and long-term success is very important for them. However, with decreasing options for tracking, such as the possible elimination of cookies, this type of evaluation is becoming increasingly problematic. According to Kantar, measuring ROI is already virtually impossible, especially in the area of sponsoring and partnerships. This suggests that KPIs like the engagement rate, which lie outside the classical figures and provide clearer results, will gain importance in the future.

The world of marketing is currently facing several basic questions regarding its structure. Since the GDPR came into force at the latest, changes in the area of tracking and targeting have increasingly attracted attention. Marketeers are being forced to rethink some areas. This also includes acquiring new skills in the area of data analysis. This is the only way to ensure that you are familiar with your own target group and create assessments in such a way that they can actually help your company succeed.