Canadian marketers are concerned with shrinking budgets, but they are on pace with their global counterparts when it comes to strategically crafting their customer journeys, according to the latest Salesforce State of Marketing report.

The report surveyed 4,000 marketers globally, 421 of them from Canada.

The top measure of success for Canadian marketers was revenue growth (37%), followed by customer satisfaction (28%) and ROI (26%), which appears to make them more revenue-oriented than their global counterparts: the numbers for all countries showed customer satisfaction was the top measure for success (35%), followed by revenue growth (33%).

The top marketing priorities in Canada were brand awareness (36%), increasing customer engagement (31%) and social media engagement (29%), which were largely in line with global trends. The top perceived challenge was budget constraints (30%), which was also the top concern in the U.S. and U.K., followed by developing new business (24%) and staying ahead on social media trends (23%).

One global trend that Canadian marketers appear to be staying on top of is adopting a “customer journey” strategy as part of their overall approach, with 68% saying they have done so and 67% actively mapping it out. On a global scale, 65% of “high performing” marketing teams have adopted the strategy, compared to 23% of moderate performers and 7% of low performers. Canadian marketers are adopting a customer journey strategy in roughly the same numbers as in the U.S. and more than marketers in Germany, Australia and Japan, though Canada is still behind the U.K. (70%), France (73%) and Brazil (91%).

The reception to a customer journey strategy has been positive in every region where adoption is high. In Canada, 75% of marketers say it positively impacts a customer’s willingness to recommend a product, 74% say it positively impacts overall customer engagement and 73% say it has a positive impact on both revenue growth and customer satisfaction scores.

When it comes to creating that shared experience, 65% of Canadian marketing leaders say they lead customer experience initiatives across the business, though just over half (56%) say their ability to create personalized omnichannel experiences is above average or excellent.

Like in past years, digital spending is going up across regions. In Canada and among those who plan to increase digital spending this year, social media was the top priority, with 64% saying the top area for increased spending would be in social media marketing, 62% saying advertising on social platforms and 62% saying social media engagement. Those results are largely in line with other regions, save for Brazil where more than 80% of marketers said they would be increasing spending in the same areas.

When it comes to the new tools and tech they’ll be using, 41% of Canadian marketers believe collaboration tools will see the greatest growth this year, followed closely by guided selling tools (40%) and marketing automation (39%).

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