The survey polled 126 marketers and sales people across the US and UK. It found that while most marketers feel able to keep up with the pace of digital change, there are too many channels to do them all justice given limited time. The biggest problem identified was having too many marketing channels to manage without enough time. Lack of understanding of digital media from other parts of their companies was also a common challenge. While marketers felt comfortable making sense of available data, quantifying ROI remained difficult, especially without company-wide agreement on digital's value.

1. MARKETER’S
TIME SAVING SURVEY
1

2. Introduction and Respondent Details
This survey polled 126 marketers and sales people across America and the UK.
We used a combination of our own data (captured on the Fliptop blog) and the same
questions asked to a sample of sales and marketing professionals with SurveyMonkey.
We were interested to see how people in marketing industry felt about the pace of change in
digital media, and to what degree this made them short of time.
About Fliptop
Fliptop’s Customer Intelligence platform provides companies with an on-demand data scientist for their
leads and contacts. Using publicly available information including social data to score and enrich
leads, companies can prioritize their pipeline, better target their audience and know more about their
customers.

3. • Most respondent’s job titles
didn’t include the word
‘Digital’, yet 60% spent more
than a day a week engaged in
digital activity.
• It’s a good sign that digital silos
are starting to fade – digital is a
part of marketing now.
Time spent on digital marketing each week
40%
23%
16%
21%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
0-10 hours
10-20 hours
20-30 hours
30 hours+

4. • Social media proved to be the
most popular channel, with
email a close second. Social’s
ease of entry makes it a firm
favourite.
• The shifting focus towards
content marketing can be seen
by more marketers using that
channel over Search Engine
Marketing (PPC & SEO) and
Display Advertising.
Which Digital Marketing channels do you use?
44%
69%
81%
78%
49%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Display Advertising
Content Marketing
Social Media
Email
Search Marketing

5. Which social networks do you use for business and marketing?
2%
49%
31%
7%
18%
36%
62%
72%
81%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Other
YouTube
Pinterest
Tumblr
Instagram
Google+
LinkedIn
Twitter
Facebook
• As the most popular social
network on the
planet, Facebook is also
understandably the network
of choice for marketers.
• Despite Google+ being the
world’s 2nd largest network, it
certainly doesn’t seem that
way in the minds of
marketers.

6. • Only 6% said they didn’t use
any tools.
• Nearly 1 in 5 marketers use
more than 7 tools to help
them during the working
week.
How many marketing tools do you use during your working week?
6%
38%
37%
10%
9%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
0
1-3
4-6
7-9
10+

7. What is the one
marketing tool you
couldn’t live without?
While the survey found
more respondents to be
using Facebook than
email in their
marketing, overall email
was by far the most stated
to this question, and
Google Analytics was
slightly ahead of
Facebook.
7

8. You feel able to make sense of all the data made available to you
3%
16%
16%
55%
10%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neither Agree or Disagree
Agree
Strongly Agree
• Marketers agree that they can
make sense of their data
• Despite the premise of there
being ‘too much’ data to
handle, the marketers in our
sample appear to be pretty
comfortable with it.

9. Voices about marketing problems
‚We have a CRM tool and our accounting department will not let us connect to it, so we
cannot see revenue or costs associated with our data, which makes both systems worthless for
marketing.‛
‚Changes in technology are happening quicker than we can handle and expense of upgrade is
too expensive and time consuming. You fix one aspect and something else
changes.‛
‚ROI is difficult to prove, so brands focus on engagement stats to the exclusion of
actual business goals.‛

10. • A common bugbear for marketers
is the amount of time they spend
away from their desks.
• More respondents (43%) agreed
that they spent too much time in
meetings against 31% who
disagreed.
• When respondents were asked to
voice stories of their marketing
problems, meetings was the most
common problem expressed.
You spend too much time in meetings
5%
26%
27%
31%
12%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neither Agree or Disagree
Agree
Strongly Agree

11. Voices about marketing problems
‚Way too many meetings. People default to 1 hr
meetings when 1/2 hr would suffice.‛
‚My productivity has increased since my company decreased the
frequency of department "brainstorming" meetings.‛
‚It's not so much that it's too many meetings. It's how long
they go! Most could be cut in half.‛
‚My problem is time, having the time to
concisely learn all the tools I'd like to.‛

12. • Almost 60% of marketers felt
able to keep up with the pace
of change.
• A sizeable 22% still felt that the
changing digital landscape was
too quick for them.
You feel able to keep up with the pace of change in digital media
2%
20%
19%
46%
13%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neither Agree or Disagree
Agree
Strongly Agree

13. Voices about marketing problems
‚We had many meetings about how the corporation ‘desires’ their social media
marketing to take place. However, it is extremely unrealistic because they
do not have an accurate understanding of how the many layers
overlap and are interdependent, like an onion rather than a magic bullet.‛

14. • Despite marketers claiming they
are able to keep up with
change, there was unanimous
agreement that there are too
many channels in digital
marketing to do them all justice.
• Marketers earlier noted use of 8
different social platforms and 5
different marketing channels, so
it’s not hard to see why.
There are too many channels in digital media to do them all real justice
1%
18%
25%
45%
11%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neither Agree or Disagree
Agree
Strongly Agree

15. • Responses to the previous question
neatly tie into what marketers feel to be
their biggest problem: too many
channels, not enough time.
• Not enough company understanding of
digital media was a close second.
• While marketers generally feel able to
make sense of the digital landscape, they
seem wary that other parts of their
business also can.
What’s the single biggest problem with modern marketing?
22.7%
2.6%
32.5%
33.1%
2.6%
6.5%
Too many
marketing
channels, not
enough time
Not enough
company
understanding of
digital media
Difficulty in
quantifying
ROI
Pace of changeEmails!
Other

16. ‚Corporate meetings about SEO and marketing strategies are frustrating
when ‘the powers that be’ really have no clue.
It turns into a giant Catch 22. ‘Must show analytical results’
before we can assign you more team members for the
project. On the other hand, I need more team members for the project
before I can show positive ROI.‛
Voices about marketing problems

17. 32%
12%
12%
6%
8%
30%
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
1-20
21-50
51-100
101-250
251-500
501+
14%
13%
40%
18%
15%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
$0 - $24,999
$25,000 - $49,999
$50,000 - $99,999
$100,000 - $149,999
$150,000+
Respondent Demographics
18.8% 81.2%
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Freelance
Permanent
Are you permanent staff or freelance?
What is your annual salary?
Company Size by Employees
Respondent age
Permanent
28%
45-60
5%
60+
35%
18-29
32%
30-44

18. Too many marketing channels, not enough time was found to be the single biggest problem
for US and UK marketers.
Lack of company understanding of digital media is a close 2nd.
Difficulty in quantifying ROI remains a significant problem, and proves particularly difficult
when mixed with a lack of company understanding of digital media.
Despite problems expressed around the ‘pace of change’ and being ‘overwhelmed by data’ in
the B2B marketing press, neither of these were seen as major problems by our respondents.
Conclusion