53% of Marketers Plan To Adopt Artificial Intelligence In Two Years

• 68% of marketing leaders say their company is increasingly competing with customer experience.
• 65% of B2B buyers are likely to switch brands if a company doesn't make an effort to personalize its communications to them.
• 34% of marketing leaders are planning to adopt Internet of Things (IoT)/Connected Devices in the next two years.

These and many other insights are from the Salesforce Fourth Annual State of Marketing - Marketing Embraces the AI Revolution published last week. The report is available for download here (50 pp., PDF, no opt-in). The survey is based on interviews with 3,500 marketers worldwide conducted by Salesforce Research through a third-party survey firm in April 2017. The 3,500 respondents are full-time marketing leaders in Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, U.K., Ireland and U.S. Respondents were segmented into high-performing, moderate-performing or under-performing groups. High-performing organizations are defined as those who are "extremely satisfied" with the current outcomes realized as a direct result of their company's marketing investment. For additional details regarding the methodology please see pages 2 and 48 of the study.

Key takeaways of the study include the following:

• Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT)/Connected Devices and Marketing Automation Platforms are the three technologies marketers most plan to use in the next two years. Marketers predict their use of Artificial Intelligence will grow the fastest of all technologies they are evaluating in the next two years, followed by Internet of Things (IoT)/Connected Devices (34%) and marketing automation platforms (31%). The following graphic illustrates the percentage of marketers currently using and planning to use ten of the 17 technologies included in the study. Please click on the image below to expand it for easier viewing.

• 53% of Marketers Plan To Adopt Artificial Intelligence in Two Years. 51% of marketing leaders are already using AI, with more than a quarter planning to pilot it in the next two years. High performing marketing leaders and teams lead adoption with 72% reporting they are currently using AI. The researchers mention this may appear to be high, yet offer the explanation that AI has its roots in long-standing marketing tactics and strategies including predictive lead scoring and product recommendations. Please click on the image below to expand it for easier viewing.

• Marketing leaders most expect AI to deliver contextually relevant, real-time experiences making use of advanced personalization technologies over the next five years. The ability to deliver the right message, on the right channel at the right time is most important to marketing leaders. Hyperpersonalization of content and dynamic landing pages and websites are the second and third-most important areas marketers most expect AI to make an impact.  Among marketers who already use AI, 64% say it has greatly or substantially increased their overall marketing efficiency. The following graphic provides an overview of those areas market leaders expect AI to deliver improved efficiency and more precisely targeted personalization. Please click on the image below to expand it for easier viewing.

• 75% of the marketing leaders interviewed are currently using marketing analytics, followed by CRM and email campaign management (73% adoption for each). The marketing leaders interviewed as part of the study anticipate marketing analytics and CRM will both see significant year over year growth of 23% and 25% respectively. The following graphic ranks the 17 technologies evaluated as part of the study in ascending order of existing adoption. Please click on the image below to expand it for easier viewing.

• High performing marketing teams are 14x more likely to be heavy martech adapters, using on average 15 of the 17 technologies researched in the survey. High-performance marketing teams are more adept at adopting a wider variety of technologies than their lower-performing They’re also more adept at orchestrating these technologies into a unified communication strategy with customers. The following graphic provides an overview of high, moderate and under-performers’ assessment of seven core dimensions of the marketing technology stack effectiveness. Please click on the image below to expand it for easier viewing.

• 60% of B2B marketers have been more focused on improving audience segmentation and personas over the last 18 months. Those marketers who are from high-performing organizations are 1.7X more likely to perceive AI having a transformational impact on customer segmentation/lookalike audience modeling. Personas can serve to unify marketing and sales goals and metrics, and clarify marketing’s efforts to impact individual accounts and customers as the following results indicate. Please click on the image below to expand it for easier viewing.