• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, December 18, 2013

Marketers will transform marketing departments from cost centers to revenue-generating business units in 2014. Data helps with this transition, along with digital key performance metrics. Just ask Google and Bing execs. Most media-buying budgets no longer sit in silos, and about 20% of the marketing budget now goes to integrated multi-screen campaigns. For the most part, bidding and buying happens in real-time. In fact, 74% of growth in real-time bidding based on programmatic buying methods occurred this year.

International Data Corporation (IDC) on Tuesday released its top 10 predictions looking at how the role of CMO will change in 2014, and will dramatically transform by 2020 into three organizational systems: content, consumption, and channels. And while I can run down the one to 10 predictions appearing in the standard press release, the webinar and commentary provided so much more insight into the forecast. 

The CMO will become the default chief of the consumer digital experience, according to IDC analysts. The CMO title will become open for definition, as the industry continues to experiment with titles like chief customer officer, and (I think this one's a spoof) chief cool officer.

When it comes to content marketing to support SEO, more isn't better, relevance becomes the goal, and measurements pay off. Marketers will waste about 80% of customer data due to immature enterprise systems and data, so it will become more important to work with IT divisions within the company to update back-end systems and tie them to online ordering, (which I've been telling you for nearly a year).

Fragmented marketing IT point products and low adoption rate will inhibit companies' ability to win customers, according to IDC. The analyst firm also suggests that by the end of 2014, 60% of CMOs will have a formal recruiting process for people with data skills, but I hope for the sake of the industry and consumers that it happens a lot sooner than predicted.

Turning marketing business units into money-making divisions will require more marketers to become proficient in metrics and analytics. At the most recent MediaPost Search Insider Summit, Joy Billings, director of analytics and optimization at Experian Consumer Direct, reminded attendees that it's not about the quantity of data, but the quality and knowing what to do with it.

The biggest problem that IDC analysts predict related to data is that only 20% of marketers will receive formal training on analytics and customer data management platforms.

Digital marketing investment will exceed 50% of total program budget by 2016, per IDC, but I can only image what will happen as more consumers procure goods and services online if brands can't pull all this together and get it done.

"Gold Crown" photo from Shutterstock.