This comes from our brand new 2015 Email Marketing Industry Census, produced in association with Adestra

This report looks in detail at the approaches taken and the resources given to email marketing, as well as issues regarding effectiveness, marketing automation, mobile and the future of email based on the input of over 1,000 client-side and agency organisations.

Here we’ll be taking a look at our respondents’ thoughts on marketing automation and its perceived benefits throughout any given organisation.

The adoption and improvement of automation is slow and steady. Although marketing automation has been around for some time, appreciation of its potential in the context of a broader marketing campaign has increased and has led to a larger amount of companies embracing automation. 

“How clear are you on the benefits of marketing automation?”

There has been no change in how clear agency clients are on the benefits of marketing automation. Agencies are only marginally more likely to declare their clients are at least ‘quite’ clear on the benefits of marketing automation as they were last year (67% versus 66% in 2014).

Company respondents:

Agency respondents:

“What do you see as the main benefits of marketing automation?”

When companies were asked what they perceived as the main benefits of marketing automation, ‘more relevant communication’ was acknowledged by the largest proportion of respondents (78%) as a benefit. That being said, 6% fewer companies selected this compared to 12 months ago.

While there has been a slight decline in the proportion of companies considering the majority of these options as benefits of marketing automation, companies are more likely to see ‘saving time’ (+5%) as a key benefit of implementing marketing automation.

These percentages are similar amongst agency respondents. ‘Saving time’ is again the only benefit to see a higher proportion of respondents selecting it, with 61% of agencies saying this is a benefit (compared to 56% in 2014).

For more email marketing insights, download the latest version of the Email Marketing Industry Census.

Marketing automation will also be covered in our four Behavioural Marketing roundtable events in South East Asia, running from June 2015 in association with IBM Silverpop.