Canadian Ad Insider

As digital marketing continues to be a huge part of all campaigns, Webmarketing123, a provider of digital marketing services released a new report on the “2012 State of Digital Marketing.” the data was comprised by interviewing over 500 B2B and B2C marketers in the United States, it still provides a good benchmark for us north of the border to use get a quick idea of the state of digital in Canada.

“The results from our second annual State of Digital Marketing Report are in, and according to B2B and B2C marketers alike, SEO continues to make the biggest impact on lead generation — with the perceived impact increasing 20% year-over-year,” said Paul Taylor, CEO of Webmarketing123. “The reality of today’s business environment is that the early sales cycle lives online and your success boils down to one key factor — if you’re not ranking on page 1 of search results, you are invisible to most prospects.”

The 2012 State of Digital Marketing Report discovered that SEO is still a black box to marketers, as companies using agencies to manage their SEO efforts were more than twice as likely to be highly satisfied with the results, in large part due to the increased analytics that agencies typically provide. After all, 7 out of 10 companies who manage their own SEO efforts reported being unable to accurately attribute their SEO ROI.

Highlights of the 2012 State of Digital Marketing Report include:

SEO continues to be the shining star of Digital Marketing:

• 59% of B2B marketers and 49% of B2C marketers say SEO makes the biggest impact on lead generation.
• Over 50% of marketers surveyed will increase their SEO spend next year.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising has perceived poor performance:

• Only 1 in 5 companies report being satisfied with their PPC advertising performance.
• Overall, marketers working with agencies express higher levels of satisfaction with their PPC campaigns.

Social Media marketing gains more traction as well as momentum:

• While the perception remains that B2C companies have a deeper involvement with social media, B2Bs are closing the gap. In fact, 66% of B2B marketers report moderate to full engagement, compared to 70% for B2C.
• The percentage of B2C marketers generating leads or sales via LinkedIn increased 75% since last year, while the number reporting Facebook as a source of deals decreased by nearly 20%.
• As more sophisticated attribution tools become available, the number of marketers able to attribute leads, sales and deals to particular social channels more than doubled (leads from 15% to 31%, deals from 23% to 60%).

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