Six martech trends to watch in 2021 | WARC
With martech now seen as a key component for recovery, leaders need take into consideration how its deployment should impact the way the business operates across all functions and levels, writes Anurag pandemic has clearly had a mixed impact on marketers. We’ve progressed from questioning whether the CMO role is going extinct to virtually all businesses turning to digital marketing as a means of survival, making the role of a digital marketer one of the most sought-after the flip side, marketers will be expected to deliver on revenue and customer acquisition with many marketers anticipating continued budget cuts. It is within this frame that marketing technology (martech) is seen to be a key component for recovery, with over 60% of leaders planning to increase spends on technology in 2021, according to ever, like most operating modules moving forward, martech adoption will likely focus on agility, avoiding the hype of technology to look at practical tech solutions that can influence strategy, insights and engagement. 1. The rise of no-code techIn 2020, 75% of organisations still have a long way to go in terms of digital maturity, according to a survey by Deloitte. This, coupled with the do-or-die need that businesses are facing in digital transformation, would likely see the rise of no-code or low-code martech solutions. These solutions can be easily used by marketers with minimal technical capabilities and sold to top management with simple data 1: Deloitte survey of digital skills amongst marketers adopting Martech solutions2. Future-proofing existing martech stacksMany businesses already have some form of martech solutions. According to Gartner, only 33% feel their existing tech is useful, while over 80% are sitting on a short-sighted or outdated martech first order of business for many will be to examine their current martech stack and employ efforts to either maximise, improve, or even re-evaluate their current stack. This is also a signal that it is high time for many martech stacks and roadmaps to go through a level of audit to accommodate innovation, emphasise on business differentiation, or even just simple updating for 2: Gartner martech audit framework3. Martech to drive business growthMore businesses are moving to digital, with many for the very first time, but all have had to revisit their existing playbooks or analytical frameworks that had served them well over the years. As more marketers ventured into uncharted waters, saddled with the burden of reduced budgets and higher targets, attribution will become rrently, 80% of marketers are dissatisfied with the tools they have to measure return on investment (ROI) while only 36% are happy with how they measure business impact, according to Harvard Business Review. Attribution will be vital to elevate marketers back into the position of trusted business partner over being viewed as a cost centre. 4. The race for a single view of consumersThe value of personalisation represents trillions in revenue to businesses; but by 2025, Gartner anticipates that marketers would have all but given up on achieving personalisation. The main reason cited is usually a lack of data, making it difficult for marketers to gather, store, classify, and implement of insights on their es now also need to consider improving the way first party data is used, given the rapid restrictions being imposed on third party data. At its peak, the utilisation of an effective Customer Data Platform (CDP) would provide a single view of your consumers and accurate predictions of customer lifetime value. In short, if done properly, it would allow marketers to return to the coveted position of being “the voice of the consumer” 3: Value of personalisation by industry from McKinsey5. Executional efficiencyBudgets are being shifted away from human resource, creating a greater dependency on leveraging marketing technology for operational efficiency. As more businesses opt for leaner, more agile structures, marketing leaders will look to tech not just for automation and to free up workflows, but also to create greater cross-departmental collaboration. Leaders will start looking at tech to seamlessly take care of marketing operations and managing tasks, especially with the continued work from home or virtual 4: Deloitte survey of martech implementation usage in organisations6. Double down on engaging and personalised contentConsumers are flooding digital spaces, creating an influx of both traffic and data like never before. While marketers can now reap the benefits of being able to track and monitor consumer behaviour to an even more granular level, it also creates a heightened expectation from the new digital tween 55% to 75% of consumers now expect to be served with personalised content, according to Salesforce. We anticipate the rise of tech solutions like creative automation tools to help marketers manage and make sense of the influx of digital content that it needs to create, monitor, and 5: Salesforce survey of customer expectations on personalised experiencesTo leverage these upcoming trends, marketers need to understand that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Instead of having the luxury of trial and error they had in the past, the speed of implementing new technologies has now become a question of survival. As COVID-19 has hit the reset button on virtually every facet of the business, martech implementation is no different. Leaders today need to take into consideration how martech should impact the way they draw consumer insights, derive business strategies, engage with customers, and deliver business outcomes post-pandemic.
Marketing Technology (Martech) and Emerging Trends | Gartner
Marketing Technology (Martech) and Emerging Trends | Gartner
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Martech Utilization Remains Flat Amid Rising Uncertainty
68% of martech leaders face challenges utilizing their stacks’ full breadth of capabilities.
COVID-19 renewed the focus on expanding the use of the marketing technology stack, but marketing leaders struggle to make progress in the utilization of their martech stack capabilities.
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Martech leaders facing reactionary budget cuts are forced to do more with less.
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4 disruptive, uncomfortable, yet inevitable martech trends
One thing I am always interested in is where martech is headed. Recently I had a chance to speak with Jep Castelein, a leading independent martech technical architect who has worked on some of the world’s most complex martech implementations. Jep has a special focus on Marketo customization and integration, having worked at Marketo for a number of views on the future of martech startled me. They were discerning, uncomfortable…and right on. That’s why I wanted to share them. I have to preface this by saying that Jep is referring in these comments to mid-large enterprises – many clients he works with might be considered industry will cease to be the center of the universeI was shocked to hear this, but upon examining trends and my recent experience, I found it made complete sense. “Many go-to-market teams today see the CRM (such as) as the source of truth, ” Jep said. “But smart marketers know that it’s all about customer data, and how they are using products or services. That information is typically stored in a data warehouse. ”The vast majority of companies look to the CRM as their system of record — here you have customers’ account information and revenue data. Various departments like sales, marketing, and finance all refer to the CRM as the source of truth. The current strategy is to integrate a marketing automation platform, such as Marketo or Pardot, into the CRM in order to build targeting and trigger off important problem? Most of the high-value usage and intent data doesn’t live in the CRM. This data is gold — you can get much deeper insights from product and usage data than you can from revenue ’s also easier to mix and match data from different sources in a data warehouse. Marketers can more easily build real-time, dynamic segments, and action data in a more agile future marketing automation and email platforms will not have databasesI found the next prediction to be a big mind shift for me, and probably a hard one to grasp for most marketers today. “Well if you think about it, it’s redundant to have the same data in your data warehouse, your MAP and CRM, ” Jep explained. “And these different systems are often missing chunks of data. Remember that even leading MAPs today lack functionality when it comes to data analysis and management. My prediction — the future MAPs will be built to hook directly into the data warehouse. ”MarTech Live: How experts are managing marketing automationJep is referring to the daily syncing and updating data in multiple places. This is a huge lift, especially for companies generating thousands or even millions of interactions a day. Imagine having to wait till lunchtime to have accurate marketing data, and then being constantly disrupted by discrepancies between the, MAPs lack the data analysis and manipulation capabilities to build complex segments. “If the MAP is integrated directly to the data warehouse, marketers can build their targeting on real-time data, and the campaigns can be deployed faster, ” Jep said. “Oh, and don’t forget about better security. ”As a long time advocate of data privacy, this one hit home for me. The “security” Jep refers to is the imperative for marketers to protect customer consent, from both businesses and malicious actors. For many, marketing grinds to a halt when introducing new platforms and data processes because of the risk of data exposure. Enterprise marketers would breathe much easier if MAPs did not store customer information, but leveraged the data warehouse as their primary and money investment in data synchronization will tripleData synchronization refers to the flow of data between multiple systems. Increasingly, marketing is involved in pulling together disparate data between platforms to get accurate views of the customer and to leverage the information in online and offline engagements. “We’ve seen huge investments in companies like Workato and, ” Jep pointed out. “Huge. Marketers sorely need help getting data synchronized across platforms, and that will only continue as the amount of touch points and engagements grow. ”While Jep mentioned that we’ll see more investment pouring into data companies, he also pointed out that we’ll see new directives from leaders to hire data talent and shift time and resources to these important initiatives. Full disclosure, I have joined Syncari, a data automation and management platform, as an advisor because I am fully vested in the belief that data synchronization and management is an untapped opportunity. Marketers today aren’t actually using data to do good marketing – but they will startThis last one was a punch in the gut, but I knew it to be true when I heard it. “Marketers today think they are data-driven, but I would argue that they are just scratching the surface, ” Jep explained. “They are using data from basic events such as website visits, forms fills and email clicks. The real, high-value data points are intent data and product/service usage data. ”Ouch. But again, spot on. Typical marketing automation deployments are set up to target customers who download content or click an email. But how much does that really tell us about their needs, timeline, and perception? In reality, marketers are extrapolating a great deal when determining customer intent from those basic signals. The better signals? Intent data from other platforms and product usage data from proprietary systems. Some even rank these signals above surveys in gaining insight about their customers. Rather than asking for customer sentiment, you are observing their actions – what they are willing to invest their time and energy Scott Brinker’s 5 martech predictions for the oving valueI found my interview with Jep to be enlightening, albeit at times uncomfortably so. But it made me remember that marketing and its technology are meant to provide value, and to find shared value for both the customer and the marketer. This overarching theme is meant to weave these predictions together, and brings much weight to their this be the future of Martech in the next 3-5 years? What do you think? About The Author Darrell is an award-winning marketer and Martech professional. He was named one of the top Martech Marketers to Follow in 2020, won the Fearless Marketer award in 2018, is a 2X Marketo Champion, and is a certified Salesforce Administrator. He has consulted for several Fortune 500 companies including General Electric and Abbott Laboratories and currently leads marketing operations at Amazon Web Services where he helps empower hundreds of marketers to build world-class customer experiences. Darrell is a frequent speaker at martech events, and regularly posts thought leadership content on Linkedin and Twitter.
Frequently Asked Questions about martech trends
What is the future of MarTech?
The MarTech future will be about campaign orchestration, insight and relevance in the age of artificial intelligence. A number of Marketing Tech providers will try to grab the spotlight by offering machine learning services, surfing the peak Hype-cycle wave.
What is martech2021?
MarTech will take place online, September 14-15, 2021. Visit martechconf.com/fall to learn more and join us for a free, expert-led training program! Being a marketer today is harder than ever. And more exciting, too! Strategy and execution are table stakes.
What does MarTech mean?
Marketing technology, also known as MarTech, describes a range of software and tools that assist in achieving marketing goals or objectives. When a marketing team utilizes a grouping of marketing technologies, this is known as their marketing technology stack.