• by Jess Nelson , December 29, 2015

Some 81.3% of global marketers say data will become more important to their marketing and advertising efforts in 2016, according to the second annual Global Review of Data Driven Marketing and Advertising Report by MediaMath, The Winterberry Group and the Global DMA.

This is a slight increase from the previous year, when 80.4% of international marketers polled responded that data was important to their marketing strategy. Slightly more than 59% of marketers say data is critical to their campaigns this year, up from 57.1% in 2014.

Worldwide, 74.1% of marketers remain confident of data-driven marketing and its potential for future growth in 2016. The data was derived from an international poll of 3,000 marketers across 17 markets in the third quarter of 2015.

Email marketing data advertising expenditure is expected to outrank TV, digital out-of-home advertising, direct mail and teleservices or contact centers in 2016 -- but is predicted to fall to digital display advertising, social media management and content, search, web content and mobile app content in the New Year.

It seems marketers are committed to better organizing their own internal customer data instead of purchasing third-party data, such as mailing lists or from data providers. Out of the 16 markets polled, only marketers in six countries -- Belgium, France, Germany, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States -- admit they have a sophisticated practice of buying third-party data.

Some 56.3% of global marketers stated that they had increased their data-driven marketing ad expenditure in 2015, while an even greater 68.6% plan to or expect to increase their budgets in the New Year. Only 36.7% of American marketers, however, responded that they had seen an increase in their data-driven marketing and advertising spend in 2015. An additional 39.1% responded that they expected to see additional increases in the New Year.

Data-driven spending in the email marketing channel has consistently been increased over the past three years, according to the report. On a scale of 1.0 (spending had decreased or is likely to decrease significantly) to 5.0 (spending has increased or is likely to increase significantly), email has consistently hovered around 3.8. Email ranked as 3.78 in 2014 and 2015, but increased in 2016 to 3.81.

Marketers spent more on email marketing data compared with TV, digital out-of-home advertising, direct mail and teleservices and contact centers in 2015, but fell to the digital display advertising, social media management and content, search, Web content and mobile app content channels.