Expert Insight: How Marketers Need to Respond to the Rapidly Evolving MarTech Landscape

As the MarTech landscape continues to evolve, new research suggests that marketers believe it is changing quickly. Over the past three years, 48 percent of marketers believe that the landscape has “evolved rapidly,” according to a report titled the “State of Martech 2018” from Walker Sands.

How are marketers keeping up with the changes and adjusting their strategies accordingly? For more insight into the research, we spoke to Jennifer Mulligan, account director at Walker Sands.

Most companies (24 percent) only assess their marketing technology stack to ensure they have the right tools to meet their goals every six months or once a year — why do you think this is the case?

“We were surprised to find the marketers assess their martech stacks as often as they do. We expected most companies to assess annually to align with their annual budgets. However, half of marketers evaluate more often than yearly. The impact for martech vendors is that they need to listen and implement customer feedback constantly to ensure their customers are satisfied.”

Nearly half of marketers (48 percent) said that the martech landscape has evolved rapidly over the past three years. How can marketers  keep up with the changes?

“According to Scott Brinker’s annual Martech Landscape, there are now 7,000 martech tools and solutions. For marketers who are looking for ways to implement more technology into their organizations, I recommend starting with tools that alleviate the time-sucking parts of their jobs such as social media management and CRM solutions. We’re seeing marketers do that with email and social media management tools being the most widely adopted. As marketers become more mature in their martech capabilities, then they can start adopting the newer, less proven technology like VR and voice.”

Forty-six percent of marketers said that their companies are only “somewhat agile” in regards to their ability to add new solutions to their martech stack. How can marketers make improvements?

“Marketers are busier than ever before, and with more technology and measurement tools available to them, they face more pressure than ever to perform. Yet, they face significant time constraints, which prevents them from putting together compelling proposals to earn internal buy-in on adopting new technology. To ensure their needs are met, marketers need to prioritize pushing past internal resistance to change and earn executive buy-in, so they can do their best work.”

Most marketers (69 percent) said that there is no such thing as the “perfect stack” for marketing technology and it’s always a work in progress. Do you agree or disagree? Why?

“I agree that there is no singular perfect stack. Every organization is different with conflicting priorities, shifting resources and adjusting strategies. Marketers have an ever-growing list of tools available to them, and the martech landscape shows no signs of consolidating. As long as new tools become available, we’ll see marketers chase after their ideal stack.”

What was the most interesting finding/statistic to you in this report?

“While there is a lot of chatter right now about AI, I was surprised to find that marketers feel most optimistic about the potential of IoT. As voice technology evolves, the role of IoT in marketing will likely expand. Right now, we’re seeing consumers welcome devices like Alexa into their homes, and as companies improve their capabilities, we’ll see brands start to use them for search and purchase functions. With all technology, once the ROI is proven, we’ll see these tools become more common for all marketers.”

ABOUT JENNIFER MULLIGAN

As account director, Jennifer leads media strategy for marketing and ad technology companies ranging from start-ups to enterprises. She’s passionate about identifying her clients’ business and marketing goals and then developing PR strategies to meet them. Jennifer leads a team of talented account executives, media relations specialists and writers who are adept at securing coverage that add value for clients. Jennifer’s favorite past projects include Episerver’s Reimagining Commerce survey-based whitepaper, Strike Social’s thought leadership program and newsjacking Chipotle company updates for Kobie Marketing. Jennifer has called many places home but moved to Chicago after earning dual bachelor’s degrees in communications and international & comparative studies from the University of Michigan. She is currently pursuing an MBA from Loyola University.