One out of three B2B marketers claim data as a critical challenge

B2B marketers, data

Dun & Bradstreet’s 5th annual data-driven marketing and advertising outlook found that 88% of B2B marketers believe them they focus on the customer experience (CX) similar to their B2C counterparts.

More than one-third of the respondents confirm their inability to leverage tools and data they already have in place. Some 26% also confirmed the failure to identify customer touchpoints and 26% lack insight into the customer journey. Despite the challenges, about 84% said they would place more focus on data in the coming year.

Just 7% believe they there are beating the competition when it comes to providing a consistent customer experience across offline and digital channels. About 31% believe their company is above the competition, while 36% confirm that they are on par with 25% finding their company is below the competition. It has become a trend in the B2C space, but for B2B customers, more data doesn’t mean deeper insights or a better experience. B2B companies are looking forward to data governance for improving the experience.

Citing eMarketer data, B2B digital ad expenditure in the U.S has increased by about $1 billion each year from 2017 onwards and is forecast to hit $6.08 billion in 2019 — up 18.7%. Some 43% of marketers use ABM, while 17% do not but plan to use it in 2020. Some 20% do not use ABM, and 20% do not know whether it is used.

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