It’s no exaggeration to say that the last two years have been tumultuous for marketers.

Agility, adaptability, and constant innovation have become key ingredients for marketing organizations of all sizes in all sectors.

According to the new environment, providing an exceptional customer experience in this environment is a top priority and one of the most prevalent challenges for marketers today. Marketing trends for 2022 Reports from Oracle and Ascend2.

A survey of more than 850 marketing professionals in leadership and management positions conducted by Oracle found that 94% feel their marketing efforts in 2021 will be successful, and 48% feel they will be very successful. It became clear.

What challenges lie ahead and how are marketing leaders planning to meet them this year?

To explore the biggest challenges and marketing solutions that have come to marketers’ minds, the AI ​​solutions they trust, how they plan to replace third-party data, and other key trends that inform their unique marketing strategies, read this article. Please read on.

Key Challenges for Marketers in 2022

Oracle’s survey reveals the biggest marketing challenges for respondents today.

1. Maximize performance across channels – 38%
2. Ability to change/adapt to situations as they arise – 36%
3. Deliver a great customer experience – 35%
4. Coordinating marketing and sales efforts – 32%
5. Audience segmentation and targeting – 32%
6. Ability to expand programs, content and personalization – 31%
7. Marketing attribution and proof of ROI – 31%

Which performance metrics will matter most in 2022?

Data-backed insights are essential to solving the above challenges. But what performance metrics are marketing organizations using today to measure success?

Image Source: Oracle

Highly successful marketing organizations describe their top performance metrics as:

• Sales and revenue attributable to marketing.
• customer lifetime value.
• Cost per lead (CPL) and cost per acquisition (CPA).

All other marketing organizations are likely tracking their “marketing ROI” and customer acquisition and retention.

Marketing Solutions You Can’t Live Without

When it comes to the most important martech solutions that power modern organizations, customer data platforms top the list.

Image Source: Oracle

Email marketing platforms, content management systems, marketing automation platforms, and testing and optimization tools round out the top five.

How Marketers Can Replace Lost Third-Party Cookie Data

When asked which first-party data sources were the most valuable after third-party cookies were lost, the top five marketers chose were:

• 36%: Customer purchase history
• 32%: Social media profiles
• 31%: Website registration
• 26%: survey respondents
• 26%: Using mobile apps

Also included in the list are CRM and call center interactions, loyalty programs, user community members, newsletter subscribers, and SMS messaging.

AI Brings Agility and ROI – At Least For Those Who Trust AI

Being able to adapt and change course on the fly as situations arise was identified as the biggest challenge. This is where AI comes into play.

Yet marketing organizations have varying levels of trust in technology.

Smaller marketing teams are less confident in AI, with teams of 30 or fewer saying they only trust AI to score leads and create subject lines.

Across the study set, marketers are most satisfied with using AI for ad targeting, real-time content personalization, email delivery optimization, and conversion estimation.

Which of the following questions do you trust (or are you already using) artificial intelligence to do for you?

Image Source: Oracle

Other Key Marketing Insights for 2022

Among the more interesting findings, Oracle revealed:

• 37% of marketers are confident, 31% are hopeful, and 24% are excited about their potential for marketing success this year.
• 82% of marketers plan to make changes to their tech stack this year, including adding, removing, or replacing components.
• 24% of marketers say they simply cannot live without a loyalty marketing solution.
• 40% of marketers want to add customer service insights and 36% loyalty insights to their marketing programs.
• 88% of marketers are confident they will have access to the right data they need to make effective decisions this year.

Download full version Marketing trends for 2022 For more information, see the report from Oracle.

Featured image: Shutterstock/BAIVECTOR