The Marketing Automation Growth Trajectory

• As of 2013, 1/4 of all B2B Fortune 500 companies were using marketing automation, along with 76% of the world’s largest SaaS companies (source).
• There are 211 different marketing automation solutions on the market today (source).
• 79% of top-performing companies have been using marketing automation for more than two years (source).
• 91% of buyers in 2013 were evaluating marketing automation for the first time (source).
• The adoption of marketing automation technology is expected to increase 50% by 2015 (source).
• The software and Internet industry has the highest marketing automation adoption rate (source)

The Impact of Marketing Automation

• 75% of companies using marketing automation see ROI within 12 months (source).
• 35% of companies with marketing automation programs regularly capture intelligence for the sales team (from their content marketing efforts), compared with 19% of companies without marketing automation systems (source).
• B2B marketers who implement marketing automation increase their sales-pipeline contribution by 10% (source).
• B2B marketers cite the No. 1 benefit of marketing automation as the ability to generate more and better leads (source).
• 49% of companies that employ marketing automation strategies customize content to the buyer journey stages, compared to only 21% of companies without marketing automation strategies (source).

The Challenges of Marketing Automation

• Only 26% of B2B marketing automation users have fully adopted their system (source).
• 54% marketers who have not yet implemented marketing automation cite lack of budget as a major obstacle preventing implementation (source).
• 31% of current marketing automation users anticipate changing their system within the next two years, primarily because they want better or different capabilities (source).
• 55% of B2B marketers cite lack of data expertise as the biggest challenge in using their marketing automation system (source).

There is definite momentum (and perhaps a bit of confusion) around marketing automation. What are some of the successes and challenges you’ve had implementing marketing automation in your organization?