Dive Brief:

• At least half of marketers surveyed by Wayin found real-time marketing improved customer relationships, social media engagement and also provided new content pieces. 
• Sixty percent of marketers from the research expect to increase their real-time marketing budgets this year.
• Thirty-six percent reported more than half of ROI coming from real-time marketing activities.

Dive Insight:

Real-time marketing is a powerful tool for marketers, and recent research from Wayin conducted with 200 U.S. marketers found 56% saying that real-time tactics were used for forming customer relationships, and 55% citing event promotion as a goal. Other real-time marketing goals included adding to existing content, increasing social media engagement, and identifying new customers.  The research justifies a hike to real-time marketing budgets this year, finding 36% of respondents reported more than half of ROI coming from real-time tactics, and 43% reporting between 26% and 50% of ROI coming from real-time marketing.

As successful as real-time marketing can be not all marketers are adopting the strategy. A December 2014 report from Econsultancy found only 17% of surveyed marketers saying they responded to customer engagement in real-time, almost half said they used real-time tactics partially and 34% reported not utilizing real-time marketing at all.