• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, November 11, 2016

According to a summary and blog of properly communicating with customers across multiple devices by Neil O’Keefe, SVP of CRM and Member engagement, Data & Marketing Association (DMA), the challenge isn’t communicating to the device, its communicating to the customer. The right customer with the right message.

At DMA’s Annual event held this past October, “&THEN”, the leadership of several companies discussed the challenges of properly communicating with customers across multiple devices, finding that some marketers feel that marketing has been directed solely at devices since the advent of the smart phone, and that the need to return to marketing to people is an urgent need. Relevance is key, says the blog, and without it customers will tune out marketers.

The report shows stats across the industry to highlight the current state of cross-device marketing and its growing prominence in 2016 and beyond:

Consumers, on average, own 7.2 devices per household and are using 3 or more on a daily basis. Marketers typically only see one (Source: Adobe Analytics & ADI Device Use Survey)  At our best, we only have visibility into a third of household devices. What vital information are we not capturing with this limited view?

• Nearly 40% of transactions are involving multiple devices and 30% of customers are completing the sale on a mobile device (Source: Criteo Mobile eCommerce Report)  How can you be sure you are speaking accurately and relevantly with your customers? To remain competitive, marketers must deliver a seamless, fully-connected cross-device marketing, media and customer experience
• 37% of marketers say the lack of a Single Customer View is inhibiting them from marketing across channels(Source: Experian’s “Single Customer View Whitepaper”)  Digital technologies continue to evolve and the amount of data available continues to explode. Despite it, we are still struggling to get an accurate picture of our customers.
• Over 50% of marketers say that cross-channel measurement and attribution is occupying the most time and resources this year (Source: Winterberry and IAB)  This number is sure to increase in 2017, but there are solutions out there
• 84% of marketers feel that a comprehensive cross-device strategy is essential for success though only 20% feel very confident that they’re serving the right message on the right device. (Source: Atlas by Facebook)  Marketers need to close this gap. Even though the customer is using multiple devices, we need to communicate to the customer, not the device

For additional information from Data & Marketing Association, please visit here.