Nearly 60% of Indian marketers increased budgets for marketing automation solutions in 2017

Key highlights:

• 57% marketers in India have a well-defined marketing budget allocated for marketing technology
• 10% of them have allocated more than 8% of their budget allocated for MAS
• 48% of marketers decided to have MAS in their marketing strategy in 2017

India has climbed to third spot from ninth spot last year in terms of using Marketing Automation Solution (MAS) and has been growing in importance to marketers. About 57% marketers in India have a well-defined marketing budget allocated for marketing technology and 10% of them have allocated more than 8% of their budget allocated for MAS, according to a B2C Marketing Automation Report India 2017 by Research NXT and Netcore.

MAS refers to the use of software systems for the goal of automating marketing actions and tasks such as sending emails, SMS' to consumers, social media, customer journey mapping and predicting trends, cross channel customer interaction and real time engagement such as the use of artificial intelligence software for chatbots, in-app notifications, geo fencing.

While the international firms such as Adobe, Oracle, IBM, Experian, Hubspot and others offering MAS systems could cost in crores, the MAS solutions offered by Indian firms costs start from Rs 5 lakh and could go to crores, depending on the solutions opted, said Kamini Rupani, CMO at Netcore Solutions.

Some of the Indian companies offering MAS systems include Webengage, CleverTap, Betaout, Gamoga and Moengage.

Marketers in India increasingly are choosing to use MAS as part of the strategy. The report says that 48% of marketers decided to have MAS in their marketing strategy in 2017, while 44% are contemplating adopting it starting this year.

The report further said that 61% of marketers of brands are evaluating MAS with cloud based platforms.

The top three activities marketers in India are increasingly using its for campaign execution, implementation and integration.

To manage MAS systems brands either have internal marketing teams, agencies and MarTech are helping them to manage MAS.

However, most marketers use MAS systems for email and SMS marketing. The report says that 70% marketers think that email and SMS marketing are very crucial features features of the MAS mix.

Besides this, they use it for app engagement, segmentation, campaign management, content management and social media management.

One of the reasons for the increase in the use of MAS systems by marketers is that they feel it is increasing their lead conversion. About 70% marketers are using MAS to increase lead conversion.

It further said that 60% marketers in India are more feel that social media, paid digital media and website are the most effective channels for a marketing campaign.

However, 63% marketers say lack of internal skills and expertise is the biggest barrier to implement MAS.