Global investments in marketing have risen, but not quite as much as corporations' financial results, leading the industry to seek more direct approaches to final consumers. In 2023,
grew by around five percent to over 1.65 trillion U.S. dollars. That is comparable to South Korea's gross domestic product (GDP) a year earlier, when the Asian country was the 13th global economy. Meanwhile, compared to companies' revenues in North America and Europe, the
dropped from double-digit heights throughout the 2010s to nine percent of an advertiser's turnover in 2023. How does the industry intend to respond to that economic pressure? A survey asked marketers in multiple continents which
in 2024. Experiential and influencer marketing were the top two answers.
Influencers' relevance in global spending
According to a survey published in early 2024, little more than one-quarter of marketers worldwide allocated less than 10
percent of their budgets to influencer marketing. However, the same share of respondents stated that influencers accounted for over 40 percent of their spending on brand promotion. Social networks altogether offer professionals a valuable feature: measurability. In 2023, global marketers selected Facebook and Instagram as the
social media platforms with the highest return over investment (ROI), followed by YouTube and TikTok.
Reaching customers with branded experiences
Experiential marketing comprehends online and offline efforts to create an experience for consumers by promoting or at least raising awareness of a brand – virtual events and pop-up physical stores are recurring examples of this tactic. This approach requires a deep understanding of current and potential clients. According to a 2023 study, purchase history was the
most important marketing data to improve business outcomes, cited by more than four out of 10 surveyed marketers. Personal privacy may become an obstacle, as not all markets across the planet find a consumer market like the United States, where nearly 60 percent of
shoppers reported feeling comfortable sharing their purchase history with brands in exchange for more relevant rewards.
The marketing industry's top challenge
Investing more in and improving digital solutions ranked first among the
areas of greatest opportunity for direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands in 2024, according to a global survey conducted among marketers at the end of the previous year. Their leading choice stresses a need for more efficient use of marketing technology (MarTech) tools within the marketing field. Another 2023 study revealed which
channels marketing decision-makers worldwide automated the most, with email and social media topping the ranking even though their usage rates fell behind two-thirds. Later that year, a global survey asked
marketers which tasks they executed with artificial intelligence (AI). Creating first drafts, optimizing content, and checking spelling and grammar made it to the top three, with usage rates ranging from 42 to 54 percent. Those figures suggest that there is still plenty of room for AI and overall MarTech to help the industry improve its results while facing economic pressure for consistent results with more modest budgets.
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