Is the Marketing Pendulum Swinging? Where Marketing Automation Has Led B2B Marketers

I was talking to a CEO the other day who was frustrated his organization’s email campaigns weren’t generating more leads. He went on to tell me he thought their open rates were dismal. This made me think about the metric-centric promise of digital marketing that viewed marketing automation as the magic potion for delivering qualified leads and driving accountability within marketing departments.
This CEO had been of the mindset that email was the better mousetrap, leading to not only revenue growth but also quantifiable marketing impact. Since he had a team of marketers pushing out email campaigns, why they were his sales flat and why weren’t email and other digital avenues delivering more qualified leads? According to a survey of 244 marketers by Ascend2, 45 percent of respondents said the email was one of the most effective online tactics for lead generation. But, with the average office worker receiving more than 120 emails a day, has email marketing plateaued?