Merkle Q2 2020 Customer Engagement Report Finds 88% of Marketers Practice Some Level of Agile Marketing

Merkle, a leading technology-enabled, data-driven performance marketing agency, released the Q2 2020 installment of its Customer Engagement Report. Acting as an extension of the previous report, which highlighted the barriers to great personalization, the Q2 report discusses how marketers are leveraging agile marketing to better align organizations and create successful, data-driven campaigns.

The report features original research, showcasing strong agile adoption numbers across organizations, with 89% of respondents currently implementing agile adoption in some function or team. As 85% of respondents plan on increasing their adoption of agile and 57% have formal plans to do so in the next 24 months, the report predicts a continued increase in agile marketing in the coming year.

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“The pandemic has shone a bright light on the importance of agile thinking and practices and we are encouraged to see such widespread adoption of agile marketing,” said Jose Cebrian, senior vice president, marketing strategy at Merkle. “Through agile adoption, marketers can help cut through disruption to achieve their organizational goals efficiently and effectively. This report provides brands with rich, research-based information and examples to make better business decisions in their journey to deliver the total customer experience.”

The findings compare how respondents from different verticals have specifically implemented agile in their marketing practices. The retail, financial, and high-tech segments have implemented agile marketing more extensively, compared to nonprofit, insurance and travel, media, and entertainment which show a less mature adoption.

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The Q2 2020 report also discusses consumer privacy regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Highlighting how these regulations are impacting marketers’ abilities to deliver the total customer experience, 92% of respondents are confident in their ability to comply and 67% see them as positively impacting their marketing capabilities.

Despite the impact of these regulations on data practices, marketers still recognize the importance of balancing data sources. When asked what types of data are driving their personalization efforts, 41% of respondents indicate a mix of first- and third-party data most often. When analyzing these responses by region, the report shows that UK marketers select first-party data most often, while US respondents use both first- and third-party data together 11% more.

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