Providing exceptional customer experience remains a key objective in digital marketing, according to a new survey of digital marketing professionals by Oracle. Those surveyed also said businesses that fail in this area face the prospect of falling behind the competition.

The report from Oracle and Ascend2 involved a survey of 853 marketers on the latest trends and areas of focus for digital marketing as the global pandemic begins to lessen its grip in most places around the world.

As part of delivering an exceptional customer experience, the marketers also said they have emphasized to clients the need for agility, adaptability, and constant innovation. It also shines a light on the need for on-site personalization and getting all channels, including social media, working together to achieve marketing goals.

Top Priorities for Marketers

The report from Oracle offered insight into some of the top priorities for digital marketing companies. For example, those contacted for the survey listed their top marketing challenges. The list provides a quick overview for businesses who are looking into collaborating with digital marketers on where they can focus their efforts.

The challenges included:

  • Maximizing cross-channel performance
  • Changing and adapting as circumstances change
  • Delivering exceptional customer experience
  • Aligning the efforts of sales and marketing
  • Segmenting and targeting audiences
  • Scaling programs, content and personalization

The idea of sustainable marketing, which takes into account the environmental impact of marketing efforts, also is something more marketers are trying to make a priority.

Other Insights From the Oracle Survey

Marketers said that data drives the solutions for all the challenges faced by companies who market their services on the internet. They also provide performance metrics to measure how well you do in your marketing efforts.

The most successful digital marketers measure success through metrics that include sales and revenue from marketing efforts, customer lifetime value and cost per lead/cost per acquisition. Also of high value are customer acquisition and retention.

They also listed the marketing technology (martech) that is most essential to marketing operations. These include

  • Customer data platform
  • Email marketing platform
  • Content management system
  • Marketing automation platform
  • Testing and optimization

Marketing teams also said they have achieved a high level of comfort using AI-driven software for tasks such as ad targeting, real-time content personalization and optimizing email sends.

Businesses looking into improving their digital marketing strategies do not need to know all the details of the marketing process if they work with professionals in the field. However, the new survey provides a good overview of where current marketing pros are focusing their efforts, as well as the most important technology and how companies measure success.