Marketing has a major role to play in driving growth for their business and marketers are adjusting their priorities, according to a new report from Salesforce Datorama.

The survey, conducted by The Leading Edge, found that approximately 94% of respondents indicate that they have shifted priorities to focus on marketing-led growth within the last year. Another 93% say they shifted their priorities towards marketing efficiency and improving ROI.

While traditional marketing continues to play an important role within Asia-Pacific, there is an overwhelming sense that marketers are embracing a growth marketing mindset. However, timing is one area where marketers differ in their growth marketing strategies. Some are focused on the short term, which is all about immediate increases in sales and metrics like customer acquisition.

Others are focused on the long term, which is about brand equity, loyalty, and values. More than half of APAC marketers are focused on the long term and 35% are focused on a mix of the two.

Accordingly, marketers identify several priorities for improvement over the next one to two years, including improving their ability to understand and engage customers (53%); efficiency of data management and preparation (50%); creating a strategic view of overall marketing performance (47%); and gaining deeper insights into audiences, content, and offers (47%).

The report also found that some of the biggest barriers that marketers face in driving growth revolve around data – with misalignment across teams on measurement and reporting (44%); inefficient use of budget (42%); lack of a unified view of performance (41%) and lack of real-time insights (40%) topping the list.

Marketers in APAC agree that a complete view of cross-channel marketing is important, but with growing volumes of data generated from a growing number of platforms, this is increasingly difficult to achieve. On average, APAC marketers use 7.4 marketing channels.


“Marketers are seeing their role evolve as they are responsible for propelling business-wide outcomes. As they become increasingly accountable for operationalising growth mandates across the entire organisation, they need to embrace a data-driven culture and modernise their approach to unifying marketing data and measuring performance,” said Jay Wilder, senior director product marketing, Salesforce Datorama.

The Data, Growth, and the New Marketing Mandate report surveyed 1,002 marketers across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines.

Sourced from Salesforce Datorama