While still upbeat, marketers are feeling a bit less optimistic about everything from customer acquisition to client retention. That’s the key takeaway of a new study from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, which found that marketers’ outlook in August was slightly grayer than it was six months earlier.

In the survey, the percentage of marketers expecting increases in new customer acquisition, customer purchase volume, client retention and other business-gauging categories over the next 12 months dropped several percentage points.  In February, 78% of marketers expected to increase acquisition, while in August only 74% said the same. Similarly, 69% of respondents in August expect purchase volume increases, compared to 72% six months ago.

Expectations for increased retention dropped from 52% of respondents to 47%, while the share of marketers anticipating increased purchase of related products and services fell 9 percentage points to 57% in August.

Despite the step back in confidence about overall prospects, marketers are bullish about one thing: spending on mobile marketing. Both business-to-business and business-to-consumer marketers project that the amount of budget they allocate to mobile marketing will increase sizably over the next three years. Business-to-business marketers predict that they will increase spend on mobile marketing related to products from 5.1% of their budgets to 14.4%. Meanwhile, business-to-business spend percentage on marketing related to services will rise from 5% to 13%.