Targeting and personalization, a new option in this year’s survey, also is a focus for digital marketers, with 37% citing it as top-3 priority. Some areas taking a step back from last year include content optimization (31%, down from 39%), brand building/viral marketing (26%, from 32%), video marketing (9%, from 21%), and social media analytics (9%, from 19%). Connected TV, also a new option this year, failed to garner a vote. MarketingCharts

In 2013, 39% of in-house digital marketers surveyed tabbed content marketing, up from 29% last year. Tied with content marketing at the top of the list was conversion rate optimization (up from 34% last year), slightly ahead of last year’s leader, social media engagement (38%). MarketingCharts

Almost three out of four businesses (71%) plan to increase their digital marketing budgets this year, according to stats included in the new Econsultancy/Responsys Marketing Budgets 2013 Report. eConsultancy

82% of the U.S. marketers are expected to increase mobile media marketing strategy by 82% followed by social media 76%. Well this co-relates with another report where marketers are not actually ready for mobile marketing. dazeinfo

Marketers were less preoccupied with turning more efforts toward paid search (search engine marketing) with 59% and email campaigns with 56%, although more than 50% of marketers still expected to increase their focus on these channels as well. dazeinfo

71% of CMOs feel unprepared to deal with the data explosion over the next five years. 68% feel unprepared to deal with social media. 65% feel unprepared to deal with the growing number of channel and tech device choices. InformationWeek

23% of the CMOs IBM surveyed rely extensively on external partnerships for IT initatives today. 61% think they'll rely extensively on them over the next three to five years. InformationWeek

Traditional media has worked well for marketing to Hispanics, but the shift to the digital sphere has also seen changes in Hispanic media consumption. For starters, there are currently over 32 million US Hispanics online; and this number is expected to reach 42 million within the next 3 years. eConsultancy

US Hispanics are also digital critics. Thirty-nine perecent of Hispanics post ratings and reviews of products they've purchased and services they've recieved. They also comment on blogs and websites, while only 15% of non-Hispanics participate in these activities. eConsultancy

58% of respondents said they lacked the skills and technology to perform analytics on marketing data, and more than 70% said they aren't able to leverage the value of customer data. WDM Group 

Some 75% of enterprise decision makers polled in a recent survey believe that leveraging data will help their companies dramatically improve their business, yet more than half feel they currently lack the tools to mine true customer insights from the data generated by digital and offline efforts. WDM Group 

Data shows new digital media are experiencing a rapid adoption rate - 78 percent of B2B companies, for instance, report using social network marketing - but that marketing measurement is not keeping with the same pace. "In particular," the study claims, "measurement of digital marketing with financial metrics (such as market share, revenue, profit, or lifetime customer value) is lagging. Only 14 percent of those companies using social network marketing are tying it to fianancial metrics." KO Marketing Associates

Marketers are more likely to say that marketing staff (28%) participate in making digital marketing technology recommendations than the CMO (17%), the IT department (14%), and the VP of Digital (11%). MarketingCharts

38% expected to decrease their investment in paid traditional media, compared to just 16% for paid digital media, and 9% for earned/owned media. MarketingCharts 

Although client marketers said traditional media still makes up the majority of their budgets, only 22% forecast increase in traditional media spending thie year compared to 2011, while half expected to increase their paid digital media spend, and two-thirds their earned digital media spend. MarketingCharts 

Almost three-quarters of enterprise decision makers report a shift in budgets from traditional advertising to digital in the past year, according to a March 2012 report from DataXu. MarketingCharts 

About one-third say that more than half of their budgets have shifted from traditional to digital marketing, while an additional 23% report between 26% and 50% of their budgets moving to digital. MarketingCharts 

According to Forrester Research, spend related to search marketing, online display advertising, email marketing, social media, and mobile marketing will collectively grow to nearly U.S. $55 billion by 2014. More importantly, as marketers are getting better at balancing channel investments with consumer media time, digital spend will increase from 12% of overall advertising to over 21% by 2014 as marketers shift dollars away from low-performing traditional media into more relevant interactive channels. Forrester

According to online privacy service provider TRUSTe, just 10% of US adults reported being worry-free regarding their online privacy. Though the level of online privacy concern varied in degree, a large percentage of respondents reported significant unease: 21% worried frequently, and 23% always worried about their digital privacy. TRUSTe

Market research company uSamp surveyed 600 social media users who visited such sites at least a few times a week. It found that 28.2% of both male and female respondents said they were somewhat or very uncomfortable with the privacy protection on social media sites, and another 4.2% said they were uncertain. Comparing men to women, by age, a higher percentage of men were very or somewhat comfortable with privacy protection, with the exception of respondents ages 50 and older. Of females that age, 57.2% were somewhat or very comfortable, compared to 45.2% of men ages 50 and up. uSamp