According to Pipeline360’s research, only 8% of marketers in New Zealand and the APAC region rate their marketing strategies as ‘exceptional’. Joseph McCarthy, APAC‘s senior account director at Pipeline360, shares lessons that NZ marketers could learn from their high-performing global peers.
In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, marketers are facing mounting pressure to get results. Our research reveals that just 8% in New Zealand and APAC rate their marketing strategies as “exceptional” – the lowest of any region.
Yet the good news for Kiwi teams is that, like their peers across the region, they’ve traditionally been good at adapting. When I moved to this side of the world nearly a decade ago, it stood out to me how much more open its marketers are to learning from global trends, trialling new strategies and testing innovative approaches.
Perhaps the current dip in confidence also signals something positive? A growing awareness of untapped potential and a drive to elevate strategies from good – or even struggling – to truly exceptional.
By streamlining tech stacks, deploying artificial intelligence and focusing on data quality, there is a real opportunity for marketers to take note and join a breakaway group of high performers globally.
What’s happening in APAC?
APAC marketers aren’t just concerned about their overall strategy. Just 8% rate their lead nurturing as excellent. This critical capability is getting harder in part because of limited resources.
Only two-fifths of teams in the region say their budgets increased this year, and headcount is being frozen or reduced for many. But it’s also a result of more complex B2B buyer journeys, expanded buyer groups that could reach as many as 20 people and extended sales cycles. In fact, APAC marketers are least confident globally in reaching and engaging with their audiences.
Lead nurturing is also harder when sales and marketing teams don’t talk to each other. We found that just 44% of APAC teams are aligned – lower than any region. They’re most likely to cite data concerns as a top challenge, and have the greatest need for customer insight.
Lessons learned
There are plenty of positive global trends to inspire Kiwi marketers. Through our research, we found that data effectiveness is the biggest differentiator of performance in B2B marketing, with a 65-percentage point gap between the best and worst performing teams.
Those effectively able to collect, analyse and interpret data on their audiences will gain better understanding into buyer behaviours and ultimately make better decisions. They’ll also be able to measure campaign performance and communicate impact to business leaders more effectively.
As they look to improve analytical processes, data collection methods and interpretation skills, Kiwi teams must remember the importance of accuracy and compliance. It’s something high performers are more likely to do than their peers. And it’s particularly important in light of the upcoming Privacy Amendment Bill, which will introduce new notification rules and other requirements.
Another lesson local marketers could learn from their high-performing global peers is to work on sales-marketing alignment. Shared KPIs, joint workshops and regular communication/feedback loops will help to break down traditional silos here. By removing friction at the bottom of the funnel, teams could see significant improvements in lead qualification, nurture and retention.
The value of AI
It is impossible not to mention the influence that AI is having on our industry. However, according to KPMG, fewer New Zealanders than any other nation believe the benefits of AI outweigh the risks, at just 44%.
Despite understandable concerns within marketing about its impact on human-led creativity, AI and machine learning is ranked globally as an invaluable way to generate new content, optimise email marketing campaigns and drive customer insight and segmentation for better engagement.
Generative AI (GenAI) in particular offers a fantastic way for smaller teams to create personalised content at scale and better nurture leads through longer sales cycles, without needing to spend big.
This content can be syndicated to reach buyers where they are, and delivered alongside digital ads to build brand awareness at the same time as demand generation.
With digital the primary revenue driver in New Zealand’s advertising industry and forecast to represent 82% of APAC ad budgets by 2029 -up from 76% in 2024 – there can be little doubt these new technologies will come to the fore.
Streamlining the tech stack
As marketers improve their data capabilities and adopt AI, the amount of tech on offer can feel overwhelming.
The marketing industry is awash with tools – over 15,000 at the last count – and it shows. Many don’t talk to each other, creating data silos, complexity and extra work for teams.
It is perhaps unsurprising then that 72% of high performers have taken steps to optimise their tech stack versus just 12% of low performers.
Kiwi marketers looking to elevate their strategies should do the same. For example, carry out an audit to spot any unused or underused tools, consolidate where products don’t drive personalisation and improve integration between their key platforms.
Better still, they could outsource the entire demand generation stack to an expert third party. Fully managed Demand as a Service offerings like this enable even smaller teams to scale campaigns rapidly, and refocus on outcomes rather than flashy tools that overpromise and under deliver.
In doing so, they’ll also free up talent to focus on high-impact strategic work. Count that as another win straight from the global high-performance marketing playbook.
