Toolbox: 6 Martech Trends You Should Know Right Now
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How important is marketing technology right now?
Roughly 69 percent of marketers believe it helps them excel in their roles, according to a Walker Sands state of martech report, and Gartner research reveals businesses are spending more on martech than ever — as much as 30 percent more.
But your business may not be getting the most out of its martech spend. Staying on the cutting edge of marketing technology empowers you to make better decisions that help you reach a bigger audience and achieve greater success.
Here are six martech trends you should know about right now to make the biggest impact.
1. Too Much Spending Without Valuable ROI
A recent BDO and WARC report found 30 percent of marketing budgets in the United States goes to marketing technology.
“It begs the question of how many businesses are getting ROI and taking time to fully customize to their businesses and ringfence time for analysis of the insights,” says Dr. Dave Chaffey, co-founder of digital strategy learning platform Smart Insights.
“The report also shows that around one third of companies have reduced media spend due to martech investment, which suggests it could potentially harm customer acquisition,” he notes.
But Chaffey notes the same report shows that around 50 percent of businesses “are buying into the ‘one-stop shop’ of marketing cloud solutions. They will use specialist providers that give better ROI, for example better quality personalization through AI or using conversation marketing platforms like Drift, Intercom, or Continual.ly — these will prove particularly important for B2B in the future.”
Companies investing in martech must take care to ensure they spend money on the right solutions to achieve real ROI. A personalized approach tailored to your business provides flexibility and value for your specific goals and issues.
2. Omnichannel Tracking
Omnichannel is a key word now, and tracking analytics across all channels is vital to identify marketing strengths and weaknesses.
“Everyone is trying to figure out how to track analytics across these platforms reliably,” says Jacqueline Basulto of SeedX. “It’s difficult to attribute the value of specific touch points when people see Facebook ads, Google ads, social media, email, content, etc. on their journey to becoming a customer.”
Martech platforms are working on bringing tracking all together, and increasing this needed omnichannel visibility. There’s still fragmentation right now, but the gap is closing.
