• by Ray Schultz , January 22, 2021

Most brands are spending more on marketing this year, according to "How To Get It Done In 2021," a study by the CMO Council. 

Roughly 66% anticipate a growth in spend, and 70% are allocating more dollars to technology. And only 25% will cut staff or restructure. 

The main areas of focus in 2021 are the customer journey, acquisition and conversion (50%), planning around digital growth strategies (36%) and campaign execution and measurement (35%). 

In addition, firms are applying automation to campaign execution and GTM ((37%), customer analytics and insights (55%) and marketing operations and measurement (35%).

Marketers also hope to improve their organizational performance in these ways: working more efficiently with other teams (49%), lowering the costs of doing business (40%) and better targeting and localizing their campaigns (36%). 

The CMO Council surveyed more than 200 marketing leaders from companies of various sizes in the year-end study.