Marketers are willing to meet the personalization needs of today’s consumer, but many lack the confidence or technology to do so. According to a new Forrester study, less than five percent of marketing heads have all the digital advertising capabilities they want, and more than half struggle to keep up with customer demand.
The Personalized Advertising Gap was commissioned by RevJet to explore the link between data access and confidence among marketers. Forrester surveyed 109 decision-makers at companies with at least $1 billion in annual revenue who are involved in their company’s marketing strategy.
Respondents were asked to rate how confident they were in their organization’s ability to create and deliver advertising creative that is personalized and meaningful at scale. On a scale of 1-5, with 1 meaning not at all confident, only 35 percent answered with a 4 or 5 for creating personalized advertising and 32 percent for delivering said content.
“This personalization confidence gap means that too many firms run the risk of getting too heavily reliant on advertising technology’s hyper targeting capabilities and so not exploring the power of personalized creative to connect with consumers through delivering valuable, relevant ads,” said Forrester in the study.
A lack of access to the right technology may be to blame for this lack of confidence, with only four percent saying they had all the digital advertising capabilities they want today. When asked about barriers to creating and delivering personalized ad content, 31 percent said they lack the technology and 24 percent said their organization doesn’t consider it a priority.
Machine learning and AI topped the wish list for everyone else, followed by real-time ad assembly, real-time visioning and multivariate A/B testing of creative. Technology needs to work together and be easy to use, they said.
The study certainly had department heads dreaming of the possibilities. Nearly half—49 percent—have either experienced or would expect to see a more efficient marketing process as a result of having a holistic management of personalized ads. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself—58 percent said that if they were given more or direct control over the process, it would be more efficient, as well.
