New research: The 2023 State of Marketing Automation

B2B leaders talk about key trends in marketing automation

How are B2B marketers taking advantage of automation tools today to improve their bottom line? To answer that question, Insightly and Ascend2 partnered to survey nearly 200 B2B marketing leaders on the state of marketing automation in 2023. Topics included goals, current and planned use of marketing automation, customer journeys, and budget trends.

Here’s a peek inside:

Business-to-business (B2B) marketers are tasked with creating effective customer journeys that identify, engage, and inform prospects to build pipeline for sales and ultimately generate revenue for their business. Marketing automation can make this process significantly more efficient when utilized effectively. But how are B2B marketers taking advantage of automation tools today to improve their bottom line?

Key takeaways:

• The majority (65%) of respondents only consider themselves ‘somewhat successful’ with marketing automation, even though this technology has been available for more than a decade.
• A mere 12% consider their teams ‘fully automated.’
• Email marketing is still king, with 62% of respondents saying they use that feature in their marketing automation platform.
• Only 27% agree that their marketing automation platform ‘makes it easy’ to build customer journeys; one-in-five (20%) B2B marketers have marketing automation platforms that do not make it easy to build effective customer journeys.
• The majority of respondents (70%) will be increasing spend for marketing automation in the coming year.