According to the council, the media marketing and advertising landscape has become much more fragmented, unpredictable and vast with the rise of digital channels.

This is also with the number of consumer choices, heightened expectations for personalisation and the need to optimise based on real-time data insights make managing campaigns and achieving desired outcomes challenging today.

New research from the CMO Council, Optimizing Outcomes in Media Marketing, in collaboration with NCSolutions, finds that two in three marketing leaders are not very confident in their current media marketing and advertising strategy to produce critical outcomes such as:
  • winning and retaining customers
  • increasing brand loyalty, and
  • enhancing CX.

Key findings from a survey of over 160 marketing leaders uncovered that:
  • 80% of marketers say media marketing and advertising is either extremely (37%) or very (43%) important in winning customers
  • 52% of marketers say media marketing and advertising is either extremely (16%) or very (36%) important in retaining customers
  • 49% of confident marketers say they perform in-flight campaign optimisation well compared to 20% of not-so-confident marketers
  • 42% of confident marketers say they perform well in driving consistent campaign results, compared to 28% of not-so-confident marketers, and
  • 83% of marketers say optimising media and audience for in-flight campaigns are either extremely (40%) or very (43%) important.

"Today's CMO must be incredibly agile in order to successfully navigate a fragmented and unpredictable media landscape," says Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council. "They have to learn quickly and pivot fast when things aren’t going to plan. They must make smart decisions based on data, not only gut hunches."

"In our survey of marketing leaders, we learned they resoundingly do not feel confident in their ability to drive direct outcomes through their marketing and advertising efforts," adds Deirdre McFarland, SVP of Marketing at NCSolutions.

McFarland concludes, "A vibrant partner ecosystem already offers help for many of these obstacles. Brands can seek partners to run more efficient campaigns with targeting and optimisation solutions."

Optimizing Outcomes in Media Marketing examines:
  • the impact of media marketing and advertising
  • where marketers can improve their capabilities
  • what they should be planning over the next 12 months, and
  • what challenges need to be overcome.

For more information, visit www.cmocouncil.org. You can also follow the CMO Council on Twitter.