Data blindspots and the inability to determine the success of campaigns remain major challenges for marketers at a time when the demand for high-quality, engaging content is growing significantly, a new report released this week by Adobe has found.
The “State of Creative and Marketing Collaboration” study polled the opinions of 1,000 people across the content pipeline, including advertisers, marketers and IT professionals. The main conclusion drawn from the research is that while more content is being created, departments are struggling to communicate effectively.
Collaboration, which at its basic level may only involve short comms and email exchanges, only occurs once a week on average, while only a third of those surveyed say that their creative and delivery processes are “well-coordinated”. The demand for more content is putting greater pressure on these already strained relations.
“Marketers are being asked to produce and deliver way more content than they were asked to do just five years ago,” Adobe’s Group Product Marketing Manager for Campaign Bruce Swann said.
Third-party agencies can alleviate the burden and manage the “creation” and “production” phases of content development, but a key problem often remains. Just 24% say that they are involved in reporting, and this is often stuck in silos or teams. This means that calculating ROI is difficult and general data and analytics are not up to scratch.
Four in ten creatives say that they want to take a more active role in reporting and, in particular, want to get to grips with conversion metrics and the revenue-generating capabilities of content to inform and improve their own efforts.