Three-quarters of British marketers plan to spend more on marketing automation this year, according to the software vendor Salesforce.
The industry picked automation as its first priority for spending this year, placing the technology above content marketing, social media advertising and social media marketing, which were each chosen by 60% as targets for investment.
Dan Rogers, VP of EMEA marketing at Salesforce, said: "Interestingly, this bucks the global trend, where marketing automation has slipped below the top five priorities, suggesting that UK marketers are more inclined to innovate in this area."
"As marketers strive not only to acquire new customers, but also to grow the loyalty of existing ones, they are recognising the need for quality automation technology that enables relevant and tailored engagement."
A quarter of those surveyed also said they would shift spending from traditional advertising to digital channels, with 74% saying email marketing was already core to their business and almost half saying the same of mobile marketing.
Social marketing was also shown to be important to the strategy of British marketers, 79% of whom said they were using Twitter and 74% of whom were using Facebook.
"The future of marketing is building cohesive customer journeys across sales, service and marketing interactions," said Scott McCorkle, chief executive of Marketing Cloud at Salesforce.
"It is more important than ever to connect with each person interacting with your brand, and personalise journeys based on their actions and preference."
