What’s in Store for Digital Marketing in 2014: Insights from Top Industry Pros

It’s hard to believe, but we’re already well into the first quarter of 2014. Knowing this, we thought it would be a great time to summarize some of the most popular predictions creating buzz from a few of our super savvy partners who know more than a thing or two about digital marketing.

Take a look of what these industry veterans have to say on a variety of topics ranging from big data, mobile, omni-channel, predictive analytics and more, and how these hot topics of discussion will evolve throughout the remainder of the year.

Dominique Levin, CMO at AgilOne

The rise of the data-driven marketer is inevitable, and 2014 brings us that much closer to the practice of data-driven marketing becoming the industry standard. Just in retail alone we are seeing a drastic increase in the number of companies who are implementing a central customer data warehouse. By the end of the year, we expect to see approximately 80 percent of retail organizations adopt these types of systems. We will also see close to 70 percent of retailers develop customer segmentation abilities in order to perform in-depth personalization with their marketing campaigns, and begin to use predictive analytics for at least one of their channels.

For more predictions from AgilOne, check out this video highlighting findings and insights from a recent study.

Jeff McCollum, President & Co-Founder of CAKE

This year poses a unique opportunity for digital marketers to understand the entire customer journey by expanding their reach across display, mobile, e-commerce, lead generation and affiliate channels of online advertising. With a holistic approach to managing the performance of their multichannel operations, marketers can make real-time decisions to optimize their digital spend.

Scott Klass, SVP Marketing at Evidon

This year will be fundamental for the alignment of enterprise CMOs and CIOs. Have you been reading a lot recently about how marketing is accounting for an ever-increasing number of technology decisions to leverage big data at big brands? How about the running disconnect between the two sides, because each—marketing and tech—typically works toward achieving their particular goals in a vacuum? So have we. The good news is that, simultaneously, the push toward increased transparency to leverage big data more effectively isn’t letting up either. The more brands know about the real impact of deploying marketing technologies on the business as a whole, the more inclined each interest is going to be to work across the company to drive its biggest goals. So, with marketing, tech, privacy and other groups coming together around “a single version of the truth,” 2014 will be the year of the much more centralized, informed and effective data strategy.

Eric Holmen, CMO at Invoca

The collision of mobile and big data will leave many marketers suddenly feeling naked when they discover that their marketing systems have a massive lack of meaningful data from the call channel. They’ll discover that it’s particularly acute with paid mobile search. Until it’s resolved, the performance and scale of mobile marketing will suffer

As the economies of the world continue their turn around and advertisers refocus on growth, a key area of investment will be the enablement of omni-channel marketing – both from a technological and organizational standpoint. This entails breaking down not only the silo measurement systems that prevent omni-channel campaign planning and execution, but also the mentality behind them. Investing in cross-channel attribution technology integrated with DMP and programmatic trading platforms will ultimately provide critical building blocks on the technology side of this enablement.

Thanks to all of our awesome partners who contributed by sharing their thoughts and expertise. It’s already proving to be an interesting year for the digital marketing industry so far and we’re looking forward to seeing many other new developments in the coming months.

Do you have comments or want to chat with us and our partners about any of these predictions? We’d love to hear from you!