Gartner has published a study (CMO Spend Survey 2015-2016) in which 339 marketers from different sectors were questioned. The respondents whose marketing budgets totalled 385 million dollars came from Canada, the US and the United Kingdom. Only marketers from companies whose turnover was over 500 million dollars per year, were questioned. The Gartner CMO report shows that an increasing amount is spent on technology in marketing and thus underlines the growing relevance of technology-supported marketing (marketing engineering). We have compiled the most important findings in a clear infographic.

No more Marketing without IT

Gartner CMO Report

Gartner CMO Report: Marketing and IT Are Growing Together

What is striking about this study, is that marketing and IT are converging. Around 33% of the entire marketing budget is used for technology. 28% of it is used for infrastructure. 80% of questioned companies have already created the position of a Chief Marketing Technologist. Furthermore, 21.3% of the marketing technology budget is used for combined projects of marketing and IT, in total 27.2 million dollars per year. An interesting fact is that 25.2% are available for external technology service providers who develop and implement marketing applications, e.g. marketing automation solutions. There is more budget available for the tools of external service providers than is planned for internal IT. A third of marketers say that they have fully included digital technologies in their marketing operations (e.g. in web and mobile analytics or performance & attribution).
Generally, it is worth mentioning that the marketing budget of the surveyed companies has increased by 10% in 2015. Two thirds of marketers forecast that the budget will continue to increase in 2016. The spending on marketing technologies has slightly overtaken the spending for advertising this year (32%), even though 54% of marketers would class advertising in their top 5 priorities.
(marketers from the following sectors were questioned: Financial Services – 83 respondents, High Tech – 90 respondents, Manufacturing – 31 respondents, Consumer Goods – 30 respondents, Media – 26 respondents, Retail – 62 respondents, Transport and Catering – 17 respondents.)
You will find more information on marketing and IT in the Marketing Engineers’ Blog.