Results from WebTrends' First Annual CMO Web-Smart Survey Released

WebTrends Inc., the global web analytics leader, today unveiled results from its "CMO Web-Smart Survey," which is the industry's first study to examine how leaders of marketing organizations view the growing momentum and influence of the Web. WebTrends survey polled more than 250 marketing executives to determine how big of an impact the Web would have on marketing this year, and how confident CMOs and other executives are in their ability to measure online marketing performance and create an ROI mindset in their organizations. Complete survey findings are available in the 2006 Web-Smart CMO Report at www.webtrends.com/cmoreport.

Overall the survey demonstrates the huge influence the Web has on every aspect of business, as well as the need for greater accountability, including the ability to prove how increased spending on the Web translates into growth and profitability, and the ability to continually improve how marketing campaigns perform. More than 83 percent of survey respondents plan to increase their investment in the Web this year. Even more telling, not a single marketing executive said that they would decrease their online spending in 2006. Some key findings include:

• The web is the hub: Over 56 percent of marketing executives said that the web was either the hub of their organization's marketing strategy, or that it would become the hub in the next year.
• Organizations aren't feeling ready: Marketing executives aren't grading themselves or their organizations very highly when it comes to their collective knowledge of the latest web marketing trends, strategies and technologies. On average, executives rated themselves 6.3 on a scale of 1-10. And they rated their staff even lower at an average of 5.5.
• Marketing teams will be even more accountable: Most marketing executives plan to increase accountability by investing in training and building metrics into employee reviews and compensation.

"As online marketing continues to gain momentum, marketing executives will be held accountable for creating 'web-smart' organizations that understand and fully leverage analytic insights to accelerate business results," said Greg Drew, CEO and president, WebTrends Inc. "Those that truly get it are rapidly building a consolidated metrics framework to drive optimization efforts throughout their organizations and to build more targeted, meaningful and profitable relationships with their customers."

About the Survey

Produced by WebTrends Inc., the 2006 Web-Smart CMO Report includes marketing executives' survey responses from October to December 2005. Survey respondents represented a diverse sampling of business types and industries: