AI believed to be hottest trend, but only 18% of companies plan to invest in AI technology

• Mapp’s new survey of B2C marketers focuses on Customer Experience in 2023
  

• Almost three quarters of ecommerce marketers believe AI will be the biggest trend in 2023 but only 18% of marketers have plans to invest in AI technology
  

• A third of businesses are looking to increase their marketing budget in 2023, despite the cost-of-living crisis
  

• Over a quarter (29%) of businesses believe their sales have increased as a direct result of improved marketing technologies

Mapp, an international provider of insight-led customer experiences, has surveyed marketing priorities and industry trends for the current year, as it did in 2021 and 2022. This year’s survey has focused on Customer Experience for B2C marketers to uncover what their strategies will be throughout 2023 and beyond. Around 350 companies from sectors including finance, media, eCommerce and retail took part in the survey in January 2023 in Germany, the UK and Italy. The below summarises the results for the UK.

Excitement around AI – but lack of investment

Mapp’s survey has shown a disconnect between what marketers believe is the hottest trend in marketing and where they are investing or planning to invest. Almost three quarters of ecommerce businesses believe AI is the biggest marketing trend in 2023, but only 18% of them are planning to invest in AI technology.

The top three technologies that businesses are focusing their investment on in 2023 are:

• Customer Insights and Analytics (70%)
• Marketing Automation (69%)
• Audience Segmentation (59%)

When it comes to deciding where to invest in 2023, the top three areas for marketing investments are improving the use of tools and technology, acquiring new customers, and retaining customers.

Optimism during the cost-of-living crisis

A third of businesses are looking to increase their marketing budget in 2023, despite the cost-of-living crisis. Although all businesses are aware of unfavourable economic headwinds, the general trends and outlook for marketers was positive. 72% of ecommerce businesses saw an increase in sales in 2022, with 31% of those growing more than they expected. Appetite for investment was high among growing businesses, with 82% of businesses who saw growth in 2022 saying they planned to maintain or increase their marketing budget.

Of those businesses who saw growth in 2022, over one quarter (29%) believed their growth could be attributed to improved marketing technology.

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Automated marketing campaigns and personalisation

Although the majority of marketers are able to initiate automated marketing campaigns in real time using customer data, 42% of businesses say they are currently unable to initiate automated marketing campaigns with their customer data.

Despite businesses embracing personalisation as a tactic when using email (89%) and social (73%) channels, only 40% are using personalisation on their website.

Patrick Guidi, Director of Sales for UK & Northern Europe, comments: “Customer acquisition and retention are both priorities this year, yet key revenue-driving opportunities are still being missed in the customer journey. A lack of customer knowledge and insights is often the cause here. However, marketers plan to be smarter with their budgets this year by improving the use of tools and technologies and focusing on first-party data collection to learn more about their prospects and customers. Moving forwards, having this owned data will give deeper insights into the customer journey and be used to optimise experiences on owned channels as a primary focus of their spend.”

Marketers and data specialists should be able to focus on what will make a difference for their business, instead of spending all their time taming the technology behind it. With the #1 insight-led customer experience platform, Mapp Cloud, they can focus on what really counts – and the exciting insights that come with it. Thanks to customer intelligence and marketing analytics, companies can easily and effectively gain data-driven customer insights across all channels in order to trigger highly personalised marketing activities. Customers benefit from

AI-supported forecasting models that enable targeted and self-optimising cross-channel campaigns. Automated messages are sent via the most suitable marketing channel, at the right time, with the optimal contact frequency. Thanks to advanced one-to-one personalisation, the highest levels of engagement and long-term customer loyalty are achieved.

Mapp operates globally with offices in five countries and helps more than 700 brands including  Farrow & Ball, PepsiCo, Ella’s Kitchen, Vivienne

Westwood, The Entertainer, JYSK, Diageo, and Lloyds Pharmacy.

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