97% of executives admit they are ill-prepared
for Google phasing out third-party cookies; 86% believe their
personalization capabilities are inadequate
NEW
YORK, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- At a pivotal
moment for digital marketing, with Google announcing plans to
eliminate cookies, a striking 97% of executives report they feel
unprepared for this foundational shift in how companies will learn
about consumers' preferences and behavior. And with over 75%
of consumers more likely to consider buying products from brands
that personalize, 86% of executives believe their ability to run
personalized marketing campaigns is inadequate. That data comes
from a recent survey conducted by Optimizely, the leading digital
experience platform (DXP) provider.
This research, which includes respondents from 1,000 Marketing,
E-Commerce and IT executives in six markets - the US, UK,
Germany, Sweden, Australia/New
Zealand and Singapore,
comes at a pivotal moment for marketers – as Google phases out
cookies, AI emerges and regulatory threats grow.
"This report makes clear that brands are ill-prepared to
navigate the emerging, generational shifts in the ways they can
reach customers," said Shafqat
Islam, CMO at Optimizely. "While executives know that
investing in personalization and experimentation are key to survive
in the new reality of digital experiences, they too often feel they
don't have a streamlined, intuitive toolkit to implement effective
campaigns at scale. Accessing marketing solutions that create
personalized digital platforms without third-party data will be key
to thriving in the coming decades."
Executives broadly agree that personalization is key to an
effective marketing strategy – 62% of respondents increased their
personalization budget since last year. They also recognize the
specific benefits of experimentation within these efforts,
including its ability to identify mistakes, (40%), allow for
data-driven decisions (40%), test strategies before they're
employed (39%), personalize customer experiences (39%), and
discover which personalization strategies work (39%).
However, companies are still widely struggling to implement
an effective personalization strategy:
- Executives implementing real-time personalization experiences
face numerous challenges, including a lack of focused analytics
(43%), difficulty scaling personalization programs (40%), and
difficulty activating experiences in real-time (39%).
- While 64% have begun implementing real-time personalization
strategies, just 9% have reached full implementation.
- Many also face process-oriented obstacles: over a third (36%)
cite disjointed workflows as a top challenge.
- Just 26% of executives report having a unified definition of
personalization throughout their organization.
- While virtually all executives surveyed with a personalization
strategy are measuring their ROI, no single metric is used by even
half of respondents, suggesting a broad uncertainty on how to
understand and track success for these efforts.
- 43% fear an ineffective personalization campaign will result in
reduced future marketing budgets.
Google's phaseout will leave companies hard-pressed for the data
they rely on. To succeed in the upcoming era digital marketing,
brands will need to stop relying on third-party data, and instead
focus on creative ways to develop campaigns based on data they can
discern from consumers directly.
To read the full report and learn how Optimizely can help
marketing teams create effective, personalized campaigns, visit
https://www.optimizely.com/how-digital-leaders-are-thinking-about-personalization/.
Methodological Notes
The Optimizely Survey was
conducted by Wakefield Research (www.wakefieldresearch.com) among
1,000 Marketing, Ecommerce and IT Executives, with a minimum
seniority of Director, at companies with a minimum of 100
employees, in 6 markets: US, UK, Germany, Sweden, Australia/NZ, and Singapore, between May
2nd and May 14th, 2024, using an email invitation and an
online survey.
Results of any sample are subject to sampling variation. The
magnitude of the variation is measurable and is affected by the
number of interviews and the level of the percentages expressing
the results. For the interviews conducted in this particular
study, the chances are 95 in 100 that a survey result does
not vary, plus or minus, by more than 3.1 percentage points in the
global sample, 4.4 percentage points in the US, and 9.8 percentage
points in the remaining markets from the result that would be
obtained if interviews had been conducted with all persons in the
universe represented by the sample.
About Optimizely
At Optimizely, we're on a mission to
help people unlock their digital potential. We do that by
reinventing how marketing and product teams work to create and
optimize digital experiences across all channels. With Optimizely
One, our industry-first operating system for marketers, we offer
teams flexibility and choice to build their stack their way with
our fully SaaS, fully decoupled, and highly composable solution. We
help companies around the world orchestrate their entire content
lifecycle, monetize every digital experience and experiment across
all customer touchpoints – all through Optimizely One, the leading
digital experience platform that powers every phase of the
marketing lifecycle through a single, AI-accelerated workflow.
Optimizely has nearly 1500 employees across our 21 global
offices and has 700+ partners. We are proud to help more than
10,000 businesses, including H&M, PayPal, Zoom, and Toyota,
enrich their customer lifetime value, increase revenue and grow
their brands. At Optimizely, we live each day with a simple
philosophy: large enough to serve, small enough to care. Learn more
at optimizely.com.
All third-party trademarks cited are the property of their
respective owners, and are used only for reference purposes.
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SOURCE Optimizely