Marketing vs IT Dynamics in Customer Experience Management

Connecting eCommerce and Digital Marketing
HOW CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MANAGEMENT IS CHANGING
MARKETING AND IT DYNAMICS

Introduction
Customer experience management is fast becoming the core pillar of effective digital marketing and data has a critical role to play. The trend for multi-channel
communication continues to grow and with it the potential for organisations to not only know so much more about their customers, but to use
this data to optimise the customer experience. For ecommerce organisations in particular this can positively impact the key measures of success.
Today, there is a wealth of data available to marketing teams, from purchase history and demographics, to social interactions and sentiment, to customer
lifetime value. When integrated into a web strategy, these insights and information can drive advanced, data-led marketing initiatives such as personalisation
and automation to transform the customer experience.
• Customer engagement – by identifying who customers are,
where they are, what they want, how they buy and how they
want to be contacted
• Customer retention – building loyalty by going beyond initial
engagement to understanding what brings customers back
• Optimisation – using testing and analysis of data to improve
how the sales funnel operates
However data is not an end in itself. It is an enabler of customer
experience management. It isn’t simply enough to have access to
the data; it has to be used effectively.
This new emphasis on the way marketers build, access and
use data is creating new ways of working for today’s marketing
teams. One aspect in particular is the changing relationship that
marketing professionals have with information technology.
As the owners and those with the skills to manage data, IT
professionals are starting to see their role become much more
visible to other departments within the organisation. A much
closer relationship between IT and marketing looks to be
essential.
To gauge how the industry is coping with this shift, we surveyed
100 marketing decision makers and 110 IT decision makers.
With data playing such a vital role in ecommerce, we also
ensured a minimum of 70% of respondents work in businesses
of that type.
We explored their approaches to digital strategies, the role of
data and how both IT and marketing are tackling the challenges
a data-led approach is presenting. We also explored the
evolution of the IT and marketing relationship, asking how they
perceive each other and their respective roles, and the extent to
which they collaborate.
We reveal our findings in this report and present a picture of
what the marketing and IT relationship looks like today with
actionable steps to help shape this partnership for the future, to
optimise your digital strategy and customer experience.

Connecting eCommerce and Digital marketing
The current working relationship between
marketing and IT
The requirement for a much closer partnership between IT and marketing is a relatively new development, which makes it interesting to look at how the
two are currently working together.
We asked both IT and marketing professionals for their view on
how closely they work with each other on digital strategy and
customer experience management.
THE IT TO MARKETING GAP
The majority of marketing and IT professionals already work
collaboratively on projects and initiatives for the web strategy.
However, there is a clear disconnect between how IT and
marketing perceive their working relationship, with IT having a
much rosier view than their marketing colleagues.
None of the above
We don’t work together much, but
I’d like to work with them more
We only bother
each other if we have to
We work collaboratively on
projects and initiatives
We tend to ignore each other
HOW CLOSELY DO MARKETING AND IT PROFESSIONALS
WORK TOGETHER ON WEB STRATEGY
Marketing
IT
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
79% of IT professionals believe they work collaboratively with marketing,
but only 58% of marketing professionals believe this is the case.

THE ECOMMERCE RELATIONSHIP
When looking at ecommerce businesses, the relationship between IT and marketing appears to be particularly collaborative, with
88% of IT professionals and 64% of marketers agreeing they work together.
The gap between the marketing and IT perception of the strength of this collaboration is greater, however this disparity is not
perhaps as bad as it seems. Half of the marketing professionals who don’t work with IT recognise the gap and believe they should
work with their IT colleagues more.
We don’t work together much,
I think we should work with them
more closely
We only bother
each other if we have to
We work collaboratively on
projects and initiatives
We tend to ignore each other
HOW DO MARKETING AND IT PROFESSIONALS IN ECOMMERCE WORK TOGETHER
ON WEB STRATEGY?
Marketing
IT
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Jasper Bell, Strategy Consultant at digital agency
Amaze, believes there isn’t enough collaboration,
based on his own experience of in-house mar-keting
and IT teams: “The issue is often that whilst
marketing is viewed as the ‘business’ and holders
of ‘requirements’, IT is viewed as a delivery entity
without sufficient licence to engage in ‘strategic’
development.’
According to Bell, the problem with this approach
is that ‘it doesn’t take into account technology-driven
trends or opportunities arising from data
and systemic optimisation. Secondly, it encourages
IT to adopt a ‘delivery-only’ mentality to cus-tomer
projects, not recognising the added value
technologists can bring to solution delivery and
management in our connected world.’
“Marketing is viewed as the
‘business’ and holders of
‘requirements’, IT is viewed
as a delivery entity”
– Jasper Bell, Strategy Consultant, Amaze
The disparity between marketing and IT suggests that although they are working more closely, they
are struggling to collaborate and align on their respective goals and objectives for business growth.

AREAS OF COLLABORATION
To understand how marketing and IT professionals perceive the
value of collaboration for website strategies we asked IT and
marketing professionals to identify where both roles should have
influence across ten key areas, and therefore work most closely
together.
Overall, IT professionals clearly place greater importance on
collaboration than marketing professionals, indicating their desire
to be involved in driving digital growth alongside their marketing
counterparts. In contrast, marketing professionals largely believe
this is not necessary across many areas of the web strategy.
The data suggests that marketers believe decision-making over
the different elements of their web strategy can be silo-ed, and
belong to either IT or marketing. Up until a few years ago this
was largely the case. Platform selection, hosting and multichannel
solutions were largely led by IT in terms of purchase decision,
software requirement and implementation. In contrast, the
customer relationship and website experience belonged to the
marketing team.
But there is a shift in technology ownership happening from IT
to marketing, with analyst Gartner predicting that CMOs will
spend more on IT than CIOs by 2017. With that in mind, the
data implies that the reason marketing teams don’t believe joint
decision-making is important is because they are comfortable
buying technology themselves. The minority believes web
content management and ecommerce platform selection should
be a joint decision, 26% and 39% respectively. The same applies
for hosting solutions (20%) and mobile strategies (33%).
WHICH AREAS OF WEBSITE STRATEGY DO YOU BELIEVE BOTH MARKETING AND IT
SHOULD HAVE INFLUENCE?
IT and marketing professionals recognise the need for collaboration and, while there is considerable differentiation on how that should manifest, customer
experience is the area where IT and marketing are clearly aligned.
There is however one clear area where marketing’s desire for collaboration is high, and that is
within customer experience, where over 70% cited both IT and marketing should have influence.

Data priorities and objectives
IT and marketing professionals are working closely together, but our research shows there is still some confusion as to which areas this collaboration will
be of the most benefit. With data now a priority for both IT and marketing, it’s important to understand how they are approaching this.
To get a fuller picture, we investigated the areas of data strategy
that IT and marketing are turning their attention to. Are their
priorities aligned, or is there a disconnect in the way data is used
to inform and develop web strategies, particularly those around
customer experience?
THE DATA APPROACH OF IT
The vast majority of IT professionals are taking data strategy
seriously (75%). When asked how high data strategy sits in their
list of priorities, 23% of IT professionals said it was number one,
with a further 52% stating it was important. These numbers
increased to 24% and 56% respectively for those in ecommerce.
Only 5% said that it is not a priority at the moment.
Around a third (35%) of IT
professionals aren’t looking to data
to improve the online experience,
with 20% saying it is not integrated
into business operations and a
further 15% saying they simply
didn’t use it at all for this purpose.
The results are similar for
ecommerce, with 22% saying that
data strategy is not a focus and no
integration into the business exists.
The research does show that those IT professionals working in ecommerce are having trouble using and integrating data into
business operations in an actionable way. With the onslaught of big data, it’s not surprising, where there is such a wealth of data
available. It serves to emphasise the complexity of data management and the challenges organisations are facing in making decisions
that lead to an optimised customer experience.
We know the kind of data we
need to collect and already
integrate actionable data into daily
business operations
We know the kind of data we
need but have not been able to
integrate actionable data into daily
business operations
Data strategy is not a current focus
for IT so we have yet to inegrate it
into business operations
We do not use data to improve
online experience
WHAT APPROACH DOES YOUR ORGANISATION TAKE TO
DATA IN RELATION TO IMPROVING ONLINE EXPERIENCE?
Marketing
IT
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
On a more positive note, a significant 43% of IT professionals - and 41% in ecommerce - have a data strategy in place as an integral
part of their business operations.

Implementing a real time
data strategy
Personalisation
Improving the
customer experience
Mobile and multichannel
Streamlining the checkout
International market
expansion and fulfilment
WHAT ARE YOUR PRIORITIES WHEN IT COMES TO YOUR
WEB AND/OR ECOMMERCE STRATEGY/APPROACH?
Marketing
Marketing in
Ecommerce
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
MARKETING’S DATA APPROACH
Customers are the top priority in marketing. The research shows that improving the customer experience comes top when it comes to web strategies at 39% (36% for those in ecommerce).
Expansion into international markets also scored highly at 32%, demonstrating the acknowledgement that the web opens up possibilities to expand. Marketers clearly want to use data to understand
how to best approach an international expansion and to manage the brand experience across all markets. Real time data strategy is also important for many, and personalisation increases in
importance in ecommerce.
The picture is of complex ambitions of marketing professionals for their data strategy. Effective
personalisation, real time data strategy and customer experience are not simple to approach.
Fortunately, it seems that the IT professionals with the skills and knowledge to take on these tasks
are making them a priority. However, there are evidently challenges to overcome.

Data challenges
To identify the obstacles that are getting in the way of data strategy, we asked IT professionals about the challenges as an open question.
Three core areas of concern were identified.
WHAT ARE THE BARRIERS TO USING
CUSTOMER DATA AND WEB ANALYTICS
AS EFFECTIVELY AS YOU COULD BE?
• Security: The most frequently mentioned barrier is security,
but this manifests in two ways. Firstly there is security in terms
of protection of the company’s data and avoiding leaks, but
the more prominent appeared to be user security. Many IT
managers specifically referenced the Data Protection Act
as ‘the biggest headache’, indicating that compliance and
regulations are the biggest barrier
• Cost: Budget restrictions is a clear secondary concern.
Time and resource were closely linked to this, indicating a
requirement for cheaper and more efficient data strategy
solutions
• Integration: Difficult to use software and integration of
diverse data sets were regularly referenced as impediments.
‘Poor integration between toolsets’, ‘combining data from
several sources’ and ‘diverse IT platforms’ were cited by many,
showing that systems and tools not only need to be cheaper,
but need to be easier to integrate
“Friction area is typically
security policies, social
media and data
warehouse design”
– John P. Lake, Vice President of Sales and
Marketing, Rain for Rent
John P. Lake, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Rain for
Rent, has had first-hand experience of these problems. He
explains that in his organisation. IT supports the architecture
and we (marketing) manage the content and strategy. Overall
relationship is good, but the friction area is typically security
policies, social media, and data warehouse design.

The marketing sample echoed some of these issues, with being able to connect the different types of data cited as a way to improve data strategy for
50% of marketing professionals working in ecommerce.
WHAT ARE YOUR PRIORITIES WHEN IT COMES TO YOUR WEB
AND/OR ECOMMERCE STRATEGY/APPROACH?
WHAT TYPES OF DATA DOES YOUR MARKETING
DEPARTMENT HAVE ACCESS TO?
Having access to the
right data in real time
Connecting all our different data
types more effectively for a single
view of customers
More resource or a dedicated
team to focus on data insight
Use of (or access to) data that
enables work with predictive
analytics
Better use of big data in order
to produce actionable insigts
Customer data e.g. demographic,
purchase history, behavioural
Real time e.g. click stream, search
for the complete buyer journey
Financial e.g. transactional,
sales revenues
Social e.g. sentiment, engagement,
interests, influencer identification,
revenue impact
Site analytics e.g. goal and source
to conversion rates, ROI and
customer LTV
Marketing
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
The bigger issue cited, however, was actually having access to the right data at all, specifically having
that data in real time, alongside anything that enables predictive analytics.
The majority of marketing teams (61% overall, 68% for ecommerce) do have access to customer
data covering demographics and purchase history, but it is perhaps surprising that the number is
not higher for this basic kind of data.
Marketing in
Ecommerce

Overall, it was surprising to see how few marketers had access
to key data to drive customer experience management and web
strategies.
Only 29% have access to any
of this in real time, with fewer
specifically in ecommerce
(27%) and, while access to
financial data on transactions
and revenue is common, one
would expect the number to
be higher (52% overall, 57% for
ecommerce).
Access to financial data on transactions and revenue is common,
but again you could expect the number to be higher than it is
(52% overall and 57% for ecommerce).
You would expect most businesses to have access to basic
social and site analytics data. However it seems less than half of
marketing professionals have access to more advanced social
data, for example on sentiment, engagement or influencers.
When we look at marketing’s data priorities (23% said real-time
strategy, 19% personalisation and 39% customer experience) the
majority do have access to the data that should enable them to
focus on these.
If we compare this to what we saw earlier on what
marketing’s data priorities are, 23% said real-time strategy, 19%
personalisation and 39% customer experience. It seems that the
majority of marketers do have access to the data that should
enable them to approach their priorities, as seen in the higher
figures for customer, real-time and social data.
The difficulties in customer experience management seem to
lie in the implementation, the challenges of data management,
integration and cost that we came across in the previous
section. So in a perfect world, what would the marketing and IT
relationship look like and how would they best approach their
data strategy?

Bridging the gap between marketing and IT
Focusing on web strategies that drive customer experience and defining the IT and marketing relationship is not without its challenges.
Follow these steps to ensure you maximise the results of your approach:
ALIGNMENT FROM THE TOP
At the start of this report we reveal that within most organisations IT and Marketing already work closely together, however they are not able to fully collaborate and educate themselves
on what their respective goals and objectives are. Mark Lewis, from independent ecommerce consultancy Practicology, suggests organisations need someone with authority across both
departments to drive this: “In all the projects that we get involved in, you need to engage with all the stakeholders. IT tends to be quite safe, and thorough, and risk averse, whereas Marketing
tends to be more ‘now, now, we want to try this, we want to get out there.’ And it’s really that cultural difference that you need to try and bridge, which is really a question of just working
together and having the right stakeholder who has the authority across both parts to make all the teams work together”
AGREE ON THE BUYER JOURNEY
IT and Marketing needs a common understanding of the customer journey and experience that they want to provide, short term and long term, in order to align their focus. Marketing should
provide a picture of what the customer’s journey looks like today and work with IT to identify improvement areas with respect to technology tweaks and enhancements. Ideally, organizations
should have a dedicated team working on this to add value on an on-going basis.
A MUTUAL DIGITAL ROADMAP
There are key areas, such as content management, ecommerce and mobile strategies, where marketing keeps IT at arm’s length. But a non-collaborative approach should be taken with
caution. The effectiveness of delivery tools and platforms can fail because of a technology and infrastructural misfit. Marketing needs to develop plans and processes that provide a long-term
view of the business goals in relation to the customer journey. These then need to be translated and communicated effectively into system requirements so IT understands the digital roadmap,
to provide the right support in buying new technologies.
Tim Walters, Partner and Principal Analyst at Digital Clarity Group, explains the slightly differing approaches here: “I think that because of the maturity of the web and other digital channels and
the central and indispensable role it plays for any business organisation, now we’re at the point where IT and marketing have to come together and work on this as a core strategic business problem.
So it doesn’t make sense from a strategic perspective anymore for it to be ‘IT’s issue’, or ‘marketing’s issue’. They both have to be working together in order to prescribe and understand the kind of
experiences that they want to be building, and how they’re going to build the infrastructure and consistently deliver and optimise them to improve the process. So we’ve got the infrastructural elements
from IT and the operational elements from marketing, and both of those now have to come together.”

SETTING THE RIGHT METRICS AND DATA ANALYTICS
With most marketers having access to customer, financial and site analytics on a basic level, they need to determine what type of metrics and advanced data analytics are still required
to build a full understanding of (and predictive analytical insights into) customers. Once this is clear, marketers can better collaborate with IT by prioritising data integration areas where
personalisation and real time marketing can improve conversions and deliver better business results. Metrics and roadmaps to doing this should be mutually developed, as should the
measurement metrics; thus driving shared business objectives and the same goal.
LEVERAGE INTEROPERABLE TECHNOLOGY
It is clear that integration is a major obstacle. Although there is no single technology platform that can cater for every need of every customer, organisations should be wary about using widely
different platforms that are hard to integrate. Prioritising technologies that are interoperable with what is on the organisation’s digital roadmap is key.
Context is the big driver for interoperability; you can always learn more about the customer experience and that gives you the ability to deliver more. For marketing, this means looking for
technologies that give as much control about the context of the customer’s experiences as possible. For IT, interoperability is a technical challenge to ensure legacy (and often varied) technology
platforms work together. Choosing pre-integrated and open standards technologies that are compatible with an organisation’s digital roadmap can significantly reduce the cost and complexity in
implementation.
DON’T BE AFRAID OF SHIFTING ROLES
Our research reveals that marketing organisations are increasingly taking ownership of marketing technology selection and can only include IT on specific, probably more complex, data
processes. Gartner has forecast that CMOs will outspend CIOs by 2017. This means that becoming technology-savvy quickly is key for marketing and therefore we will see a rise in new
roles such as ‘Marketing Technologist’ or ‘Chief Digital Officer’, which blend marketing and technical skill sets to a new level. This also means the CIO must become more marketing-savvy, to
understand the goals of customer experience management and its correlations to driving business results.
USE AN AGILE APPROACH TO DEVELOPMENT
Organisations must be able to move at Internet speed. It’s the connected consumer driving the market forward and organisations need to be able to respond rapidly to that movement. As
an example, if in 2009 you had a three year development plan, you could have missed the whole opportunity around tablets.
Often, IT hears marketing talk about agility, but doesn’t know what that means. Marketers want to do more, but don’t always know how, and are looking to IT to help them. By being more
agile, and continuously developing and testing, Marketing and IT can improve their common understanding of the organisation’s over-riding goals and work towards the same objectives.

EPiServer connects ecommerce and digital marketing to help business create unique customer
experiences which generates business results. EPiServer’s platform combines content,
e-commerce and multi-channel marketing capabilities to work full-circle for businesses online,
from intelligent optimization, lead-generation through to conversion and repeat business.
Sitting at the centre of the digital marketing ecosystem, EPiServer empowers online and
IT professionals to create superior customer experience for more than 20,000 websites
worldwide. Built on .net, and supported by a pioneering partner network of over 690 partners
in over 30 countries, EPiServers platform gives customers the ability to deliver the right
content to the right person in the right format at a time that suits them. This approach means
customers can maximize their investment in digital marketing and increase ROI. The company
was founded in 1994 and has offices in the United States, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland,
The Netherlands, South Africa, Australia, Spain, UAE and the United Kingdom. EPiServer is
controlled by the IK2007 Fund. IK Investment Par tners is a European private equity firm with
Nordic roots, managing €5.7 billion in fund commitments.
EPiServer UK and Ireland | 109-111 Farringdon Road | London EC1R 3BW | United Kingdom | Phone: +44 (0)2030 772 001 | salesuk@episerver.com
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Marketing vs IT Dynamics in Customer Experience Management

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