• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, February 1, 2008

Interactive Marketers Unsure of Tracking Capabilities

According to the new Sapient annual Interactive Marketing Survey more than half the marketing senior level respondents felt only ‘somewhat confident' or ‘not confident at all' in their organization's abilities to track campaigns across multiple channels in real-time, with only 19 percent reporting the ability to make campaign changes in less than 24 hours.

While social networking was cited the least "trackable" digital channel, according to the survey, it was the channel with the largest anticipated increase in marketing analytics spend for 2008. Only 12 percent of respondents tracked social networking campaign performance in 2007; in 2008, 42 percent anticipate using analytics to track this increasingly important channel.

Nearly half the respondents said they do not believe campaign data provided to them evenly measures and compares performance across all digital channels, but ifficulty in comparing metrics across channels is the most common hurdle to accuracy in this area, cited by 28 percent of respondents

Email and search were cited as the two channels that marketers were most confident in their ability to track, and 38% of marketers said search resulted in the highest ROI to their organizations. 28% of marketers plan to increase search spending in 2008.

Sapient Chief Creative Officer, Gaston Legorburu, concludes "In 2008, marketers will seek the ability to seamlessly incorporate social networking with their other channels, including search and email, and the capability to monitor and measure performance to ensure they are achieving optimum results."

For graphic charts and additional information, please visit Marketing Charts here.

More information on the report and Sapient may be found here.