Dive Brief: 

• The latest marketing study from Epsilon and Econsultancy show that companies that identify as "digital marketing leaders" have a better alignment, performance, and customer retention than their peers. 
• An understanding of digital marketing by the C-suite is part of the problem— only 44% of the 400 marketing executives surveyed thought their non-marketing executives understand digital marketing. 
• Firms identifying as "leaders" were 43% more likely than those that identified as "mainstream" to be growing. 

Dive Insight: 

Information from this survey underscores the importance that those at the top— the C-suite —have a solid understanding of marketing. Marketing, digital or otherwise, affects all aspects of a business, especially growth. Executives outside marketing could benefit from trying to learn basic digital marketing concepts, and marketing executives could do a better job of educating other executives so everyone is on the same page.