El 4: 35+ interesting stats from Econsultancy's Q2 2013 reports

The first week of July heralds not only the second week of Wimbledon and the start of Henley Regatta, but also the beginning of Q3.

That means it's the perfect time to take a glance back at some of the interesting reports that our excellent research team published in Q2.

The topics include customer engagement, content management, personalisation, email marketing and web analytics.

So, here are the stats...

Companies experiencing problems in managing customer engagement

Data included in the Econsultancy/Responsys State of Customer Engagement Report shows that marketers are still struggling with complete customer centricity.
Only 3% of senior marketers say that their cross-channel marketing activity is customer-centric to a point where it is individualised and set against right-time, right-place priorities.
However, the majority of respondents (87%) cite that their companies currently engage in co-ordinated, cross-channel activity and inside this, although campaign-heavy, the level of specific targeting (38%) is strong.

What level of sophistication do you feel your cross-channel communications are currently at?

The report also shows that data is becoming an increasing focus for marketers, with multiple sources of information being analysed to understand and optimise marketing communications.
80% of senior marketers say that they currently utilise web analytics to source their data, but only 13% say that they use this effectively.
The difficulty of managing data is cited to be a major barrier in understanding customer engagement for nearly two-thirds of marketers (63%).

Just 38% of businesses believe that their content management system (CMS) helps to deliver a brand-enhancing digital presence, according to the latest Econsultancy/Adobe Quarterly Digital Intelligence Briefing.
The report also shows that nearly all (87%) respondents stated that a CMS should help them to improve user and customer engagement, while 78% said it should help to build the brand though positive experiences.
The report, entitled 'From Content Management to Customer Experience Management', is based on a web content management survey of more than 1,000 business professionals spanning marketing, web development and other business departments, carried out in March 2013.

Which of the following business goals does (or should) content management help you/your clients to meet?

The report also shows that companies are struggling to adapt to a multiscreen world, with 70% of respondents agreeing that 'delivering optimal experiences across all screens and devices is a major challenge'. Very few respondents (14%) disagree with this notion.

The Econsultancy/Monetate Realities of Online Personalisation Report highlights the growing importance of delivering a personalised experience online, as 94% of businesses stated that the tool 'is critical to current and future success'.
Furthermore, the research found that for two-thirds (66%) of client-side respondents, both improved business performance and customer experience are the main drivers for personalising the website experience.
The report is based on a survey of more than 1,100 digital and ecommerce professionals working for brands and agencies, carried out in February 2013.

What is the main driver for personalising the website experience?

But although nearly all businesses are aware of the potential rewards from personalisation, the reality is that most respondents have yet to implement it on their own digital platforms.
More than half (56%) of companies stated that they are not personalising the web experience for visitors, while only 4% say that customer experiences are 'very' personalised.

The Econsultancy/IBM Tealeaf Reducing Customer Struggle Report shows that although almost three quarters of companies are planning to ramp up their spending on mobile channels this year, the complexities of providing an excellent customer experience on mobile is a challenge.
Two out of five companies surveyed said that delivering customer experiences on mobile is harder than on the web.
Three-quarters of organisations surveyed say that mobile is 'important' (42%) or 'critical' (32%) to their business objectives. Just 6% of respondents don't consider mobile important.
Compared to European respondents, a higher proportion of those based in North America consider mobile as 'critical' to their business objectives (39% compared to just over a quarter (27%) of European companies).
The proportion of companies describing their understanding of the mobile user experience as 'good' or 'excellent' has almost doubled in the last 12 months, from just under a fifth (18%) in 2012 to 30% this year.
More than a quarter (27%) of responding organisations say their customers rate their brand's mobile user experience as 'good' (23%) or 'excellent' (4%), up from a fifth in 2012.

Two-thirds of marketers (66%) state that email delivers an 'excellent' or 'good' ROI, with 8% of businesses achieving more than half of their sales through this channel.
The findings come from the Econsultancy/Adestra Email Marketing Industry Census 2013, which s based on the findings of a survey of more than 1,300 digital marketers.

Which of the following have you experienced to be barriers to effective email marketing?

The report also shows that only 39% of in-house marketers rate the performance of their company's campaigns as 'excellent' or 'good', while 15% admit their campaigns are 'poor'.
More than a quarter (27%) state that they spend no time at all internally on optimising their email campaigns, a figure that has increased from 21% in 2008.
And even those that do optimise aren't spending a significant amount of time on it. Just 19% of responding companies spend more than two hours a week on optimisation, compared to 62% who dedicate the same amount of time to design and content.

The new Econsultancy/Lynchpin Online Measurement and Strategy Report 2013 shows that more than half of businesses (56%) rely exclusively on Google Analytics (GA) for their web analytics while just 11% don't use the tool at all.
This is a massive increase since 2009 when just 23% of respondents said they used GA exclusively.
The latest version of the report is based on a survey of almost 900 digital marketing professionals between April and May 2013, to examine their practices and strategies related to web analytics and data.
Among those companies that exclusively use GA, the platform is most commonly used to track traffic and conversion KPIs (86%), followed by campaign tracking (75%).
The multichannel funnels tool that Google launched back in 2011 to much fanfare has failed to catch on yet, with just 23% using this feature.
The report also shows that big data has had little impact on the role of web analysts, with 8% of marketers agreeing that "big data is a pointless marketing term."