Australian marketers lead Asia-Pacific digital economy adoption

A recent study by Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council and Adobe Systems has confirmed Australia as an early embracer of the digital economy and digital marketing across the Asia-Pacific region.

The Digital Marketing Performance Dashboard 2012 study surveyed 295 senior marketers from a range of industries within the Asia-Pacific region.

It showed Australia invests more in digital marketing than any other country surveyed across Asia-Pacific -- an aggregate of 41 per cent of Australian marketers who participated in the study spend 25 per cent of their total marketing budgets or higher on digital marketing investments, compared with their counterparts in Hong Kong (28 per cent), China (24 per cent), Singapore (24 per cent), India (20 per cent) and Korea (20 per cent).

Adobe Asia-Pacific senior director for marketing, Mark Phibbs, said Australia is leading the region by making higher investments in digital marketing.

"Optimism is high right across the region about the business benefits of digital marketing with 93 per cent of marketers surveyed believing digital marketing could create competitive advantage for their company, while 52 per cent felt digital marketing was crucial in helping create a customer-centric, responsive organisation," he said.

The study also found 84.5 per cent of Australian marketers are using digital marketing analytics and reporting. Phibbs claimed many countries are optimistic about expected investment levels in 2013 and that spending is likely to double in the year ahead.

However, he added that the research highlighted a digital divide amongst some countries across the region.

"We can expect to see countries with the budget and skills to invest in establishing sophisticated technology platforms surge ahead of countries that are struggling to set up similar infrastructure," he said.

Other findings from the study include:

• 67 per cent of Australian marketers surveyed cited customer preference as their reason for investing in digital marketing.
• The highest level of digital marketing funding is being directed towards website content development and performance optimisation (83 per cent), search engine optimisation (66 per cent), and email marketing (54 per cent).
• 50 per cent of Australian marketers ranked social media optimisation as a priority this financial year, followed by increasing and improving paid search and online display advertising (43 per cent).
• Australian marketers are most likely to engage multiple digital agencies (65 per cent) as they do not feel that one agency can deliver across all digital channels.