According to a new survey by Nielsen, chief marketing officers rate digital marketing as more effective than traditional forms of media – including television.
While most CMOs say that digital is king, a surprising number of them also revealed that they have difficulty accurately measuring their ROI on digital ad spend.
Just one in four marketing professionals said that they were highly confident in their ability to measure ROI on digital media spending.
The study found that spending on digital ads has surpassed all other traditional advertising channels, and the trend is expected to continue. In fact, 82% of study participants expect to increase the percentage of their overall ad budgets devoted to digital marketing, and 49% expect to increase their digital budgets over the next year.
Only 30% of respondents reported plans to increase traditional media spending.
Many respondents believe that television is still an important part of their marketing strategy, but only 13% said that they believe TV is effective. Getting top marks for effectiveness were social media, internet search and mobile.
Nielsen said that their research suggests that although traditional media is not thought to be as highly effective as digital media, it is important to realise that measures of effectiveness are relative – campaign objectives should be allied with the types of media that are proven to best support particular campaign performance goals.
Nielsen added that as many of their interviews with CMOs showed, the traditional channels that were evaluated align well with mid- and upper-funnel brand building, which is crucial when it comes to increasing the size of the prospective new customer pie.
