Artificial Intelligence in Marketing Benchmark Report

Introduction

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is getting a lot of attention in marketing circles and for good reason; it promises to transform marketing.

Using a survey to collect data, participants in B2B organizations with $25 million or more in annual revenues shared their views and experience with AI for marketing and sales.

This study shows that AI is ready to help drive marketing and sales performance, but most B2B companies are not ready for AI. Through the results of this study, the messages that experienced AI users are sending to those who are considering adopting AI are:

• The expectations of what AI will do for you are too low.
• The enthusiasm around AI is warranted.
• The time-to-value is faster than expected.
• The barrier of cost to investment in AI is offset by revenue lift.
• The barrier of skills is offset by built-in vendor AI capabilities.

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What you can expect from using AI is to get real value quickly, in less than 6 months for three-fourths of the AI users in this study.

You can also expect to see a revenue lift of 10% or more, with over two-thirds of the AI users in this study reporting 20% or more within two years.

In terms of budgeting for an initiative, the sweet spot for users in this study is a modest 5 to 9% allocation of the total MarTech budget for AI.

Almost two-thirds of AI users in the study allocate less than 10% of the MarTech budget for AI.

The important thing for B2B marketers is simply to start their AI journey. It’s wise to view adopting AI as a race, and some of the entrants are already running the course.

If you’re still at the starting line, don’t despair, but don’t delay either. The greatest competitive advantages go to those who adopt game-changing technologies like AI early in the technology lifecycle.

The good news is that leveraging existing vendor AI capabilities make starting easy.

The results of this report provide details on these and other key findings and will help the B2B marketing community position itself to exploit AI in 2019.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Executive Summary
3. Why B2B Marketers Can’t Ignore AI’s Promise and Potential in 2019

   1. Marketers give themselves a C+ on understanding AI

   2. Most are Already Evaluating or Implementing AI, but Few are Using AI Solutions Perceived

   3. Value of AI Highest for MarTech

   4. Top AI Applications Relate to Top of Funnel

   5. Low Hanging AI Fruit – Still on the Tree

   6. More Buying than Building

   7. Data Scientists on Board

   8. Marketers Are Bullish on the Time-to-Value of AI

   9. Great Expectations for AI

   10. AI Poised to Revolutionize Marketing and Sales Performance

   11. Most Forecast Double-Digit Percentage Revenue Lift From AI Within Two Years Biggest

   12. Barriers: Skills and Cost

   13. Optimism for AI is High

4. Conclusion and Action Plan
5. Acknowledgments

6. About Demand Metric
7. Appendix - Survey Background

Research Methodology

The study was administered online from Dec. 8, 2018, to Jan 25, 2019. A total of 315 responses were collected, 112 of which were complete enough and qualified for inclusion in the analysis.

While the survey collected data from all types and sizes of organizations, only data from B2B organizations with annual revenues of $25 million or more were included in the analysis.