[April 25, 2013]

Ifbyphone Survey Reports Marketing Measurement Trends: Bigger Budgets, More CEO Scrutiny, Emerging Measurement Technologies to Drive Marketing ROI

Marketers are facing more scrutiny from CEOs to deliver data that accurately measures marketing's impact on the business, with 67 percent of CEOs significantly committed to the marketing function and a growing number requesting weekly (almost 20 percent) or daily (9 percent) marketing updates, according to the 2013 State of Marketing Measurement Survey by Ifbyphone, the leader in voice-based marketing automation.

The second annual survey, released today, reveals almost half of all companies surveyed are increasing marketing budgets, and they are investing in emerging technology over all else to measure marketing efforts and discern ROI. These growing marketing budgets include employing new staff to fulfill newly created roles and using the emerging measurement tools to hone strategies.

"The Ifbyphone (News - Alert) 2013 State of Marketing Measurement Survey reflects the innovation that is taking place in marketing measurement and the rapid pace with which savvy CEOs and growth hackers are evolving their measurement strategies," said Irv Shapiro (News - Alert), CEO of Ifbyphone. "The survey illustrates what industry leaders are doing today to impact revenue. And it is clear that growth hackers are championing innovative ways to measure marketing. Today's marketing leaders can take credit directly for revenue and new customers from their marketing efforts and confidently answer the CEO's tough ROI questions."

Investments in Headcount and Emerging Technologies:

• Companies are adding additional full-time marketing resources (32 percent)
• New marketing analytics roles are being created:
  • 25 percent of respondents have a growth hacker (professionals that combine expertise in marketing, product development and technology to drive revenue),
  • 31 percent have a marketing technologist, and
  • 44 percent have analysts and researchers on the team
• The top marketing technologies for company investments in 2013 are emerging technologies: voice-based marketing automation, called VBMA (20 percent), and marketing automation solutions (20 percent)

• VBMA is the hottest emerging technology being used in marketing measurement (53 percent)
• Almost three quarters of all marketing teams with growth hackers use VBMA (72 percent), about 20 percent more than marketing teams without a growth hacker
• Marketing automation software is used more frequently by teams with growth hackers (44 percent) than teams without growth hackers (26 percent)
• Workflow automation tools are being tested by almost twice as many marketing teams with growth hackers (28 percent) as those without a growth hacker team member (15 percent)

Additional Insights:

• Two biggest challenges in improving marketing measurement: failure to prioritize marketing measurement over other activities (39 percent) and lack of data due to an absence of marketing technologies (39 percent)
• Almost half of all respondents (49 percent) ranked tracking new customer sources as the top marketing metric
• Almost three quarters (73 percent) of all respondents use web analytics tools; more than half (51 percent) use a customer relationship management (CRM) system, and eight percent do not know what marketing measurement tools they use

About the Survey

The Ifbyphone 2013 State of Marketing Measurement Survey was conducted online by Ifbyphone between February 19 and March 8, 2013 with more than 400 respondents across the U.S. who are responsible for marketing within their company. This is the second in a series of annual surveys conducted by Ifbyphone to identify the emerging trends and issues in marketing measurement. The complete survey report can be downloaded here.

About Ifbyphone

Ifbyphone, the leader in voice-based marketing automation (VBMA), manages, measures and automates voice conversations for businesses and organizations. Ifbyphone's VBMA solutions capture and manage phone leads and information that often slip through the cracks of traditional marketing automation and CRM software solutions.

The Ifbyphone product suite is a set of software-as-a-service applications including ad tracking, lead distribution, hosted IVR (interactive voice response) and voice broadcasting. Organizations of all sizes and across multiple industries use Ifbyphone, including direct response, health care, real estate, home services and lead generation. For more information, visit www.ifbyphone.com.

Ifbyphone and the Ifbyphone logo are trademarks of Ifbyphone, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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