Digital marketing budgets set to increase in 2015, says Gartner

Technology will be leveraged in order to better connect with customers, says analyst firm

Organisations are set to increase their digital marketing budgets as they increasingly leverage technologies such as mobile devices in order to better connect with customers.

That's according to new figures released by Gartner as part of its Gartner for Marketing Leaders programme, which suggests that over half of firms are planning to increase their spend on digital marketing during 2015. Currently, digital marketing accounts for one quarter of marketing spend but a desire to do more in this area will see the digital marketing budgets increase by an average of 17 per cent.

"The amount of the marketing expense budget spent on customer experience in 2014 is remarkably consistent across all key survey demographics, averaging 18 per cent," said Jake Sorofman, research director at Gartner.

"The survey also found that the highest marketing technology investment in 2014 is for customer experience. Customer experience is also considered by many companies to be the top innovation project, just edging out product innovation," he added.

Trends suggest that in some cases the CIO is losing control of some elements of enterprise technology, with the marketing use case for the Internet of Things and an increasing number of web-integrated devices pushing decision making towards the chief marketing officer.

According to the Gartner report, this increasing blend of IT and marketing is most evident in the advertising sector.

"The line between digital and traditional marketing continues to blur," said Laura McLellan, research vice president at Gartner.

"For marketers in 2014, it's less about digital marketing than marketing in a digital world. Hence, marketers manage a much more balanced and integrated marketing mix than in previous years, which were characterised by online and offline silos," she continued.

"The resulting digital experience moves customers toward a more self-service buying model, allowing reductions in sales budgets that were designed around older, physical models," McLellan concluded.

But while digital marketing is reportedly set to become a more important part of an organisation's strategy, a recent Gartner report suggests that that may not be the case for tablets. Indeed, Gartner has warned that the tablet computer boom is over.