• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, November 13, 2014

A lack of time and resources will keep marketers from targeting their best customers during this holiday season, per a study released Thursday. Some 69% of marketers in South America, compared with 59% in North America, and 49% in EMEA said they will target their best customers this holiday season, but not without a bit of difficulty. About 39% of global marketers say they lack the time and the resources to target their best customers. Only 14% of North American marketers claim the same limitations. One in five of the marketers in the survey report an inability to identify their best customers. Scary thought. Santa might leave some coal in a few stockings this year.

Forty-eight percent of marketers participating in an Experian Marketing Services study admit they have a siloed customer view and can only identify their best customers in each channel, rather than across all channels. For marketers in South America, despite their efforts to target their best customers, only 50% can identify those customers across channels. In North America, 55% of marketers have an integrated view of customer activity that enables them to identify their customers regardless of channel.

Experian Marketing Services gathered insight from 379 marketers worldwide running holiday-specific marketing campaigns during the 2014 season between Aug. 7 and Sept. 15, 2014. Marketers shared marketing campaign schedules and percentages of annual budgets for holiday campaigns. The findings shed light on the number of marketers planning to run cross-channel holiday marketing campaigns, the number of channels they will integrate, the most frequently integrated channels, and campaigns that are specific to their best customers during the holiday.

Loyalty programs are the most common way that marketers define their best customers. They view purchase frequency and spend threshold, followed by the length of the customer relationship. In North America, 45% determine their best customers based on customer lifetime value rather than by determining the length of customer relationship at 28%, which is a more complex task.

Nearly half -- 49% -- of the global marketers who responded to Experian's survey report they spend 10% or less of their overall budget on holiday marketing campaigns, and 74% spend 20% or less. Some 17% allocate 10% of their marketing budget to holiday campaigns, while 16% use one-fifth, and 11% earmark 5% of their overall budget.

During the holidays, nine out of 10 marketers worldwide will use email in their 2014 holiday marketing campaigns, with 71% of online adults saying they are influenced by promotional emails to take some sort of action. Web Sites follow as the next used channel at 76%; social, 70%; online display, 47%; mobile, 40%; in-store, 35%; and search, 35%.

North American marketers allocate 10% or less and two-thirds spend 20% or less of their budgets to holiday marketing. Findings also show holiday marketing planning ramps up after July. The busiest planning months are August through October, with 55% starting during those months. Some 22% said September is the most popular month to start planning for holiday marketing campaigns, but 27% of marketers in North American start planning in August.