Analytics Expert

It’s rare that I read a press release and think, “Wow—that’s sad.” But that was exactly my reaction Wednesday when I saw the results of our study, “The Face of the New Marketer,” which was conducted by Bloomberg BusinessWeek Research Services.

Why is it sad?

The study shows just how untenable the lives of marketers have become, and how, despite the fact that nearly half measure their success in terms of key performance indicators (KPIs), most aren’t sure that they are using the right metrics to gauge their success in the first place.

Add to this the fact that two-thirds say that marketing is viewed as critical to their organizations, and that they are generally spending more than in years past, and you can see the squeeze they’re feeling. They’re spending more, being minutely measured, and flying blind.

Ouch.

So what’s do marketers see as their most important challenge? Forty-five percent report that it’s obtaining an integrated view of customers across online marketing touch points, while 41 percent say interpreting that data is the biggest issue.

So at the end of the day, it’s a very clear solution to a complex problem: marketers need to see all their customers, and they need to understand what they want.

The devil, as they say, is in the details.