Nearly two-thirds (65%) of marketing organisations plan to up their spend on martech in the next year while just 5% intend to curb it, according to Walker Sands State of Martech Report 2018.
Right now, though, they’re struggling to keep up.
According to the report, based on responses from 300 marketers of varying company size, level and experience, martech certainly doesn’t suffer from a lack of interest of understanding of its benefits.
However, while 63% of marketer felt that the landscape had evolved at rapidly or at “light speed” in the last year, just 28% felt the same about their companies use of marketing technologies.
A glance at Scott Brinker’s Marketing Technology Supergraphic 2018 and it’s clear to see why organisations are craving some simplicity, and the market continues to be flooded with competitive new entrants keen to flaunt their individual new perks, rather than explain how marketers can use them alongside current strategies.
Brinker himself commented that “marketing technology is evolving faster than most marketing organisations can absorb it.”
While companies strive to keep up with new technologies, marketers agreed it “unrealistic and unhealthy” to add new products every month, instead choosing to review or add new tools every six months to a year in order to keep pace, and generate sufficient ROI (return on investment).
Outside of cost, difficulties with implementation (27%) fell into marketers’ top three concerns, with organisations taking longer to onboard new martech than vendors assume, and as such, companies are falling behind on their rate of innovation.
Meanwhile, despite the hype around emerging tech such as artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain, the majority (50%+) claimed they had no intention of employing any such technologies. Instead, core solutions lay in more ‘traditional’ areas such as email marketing (54%), social media marketing (48%), content marketing (48%), customer relationship management (48%) and analytics (45%). Companies continue to favour access to these products through best-of-breed solutions.
“Despite the chaos, marketers came into 2018 inclined to see marketing technology as a friend, not a foe,” read the report. “They have a firm understanding that best-of-breed solutions are right for them, and they are making good on this knowledge by putting more resources toward integrated martech investments.
“It’s tough to adopt the best martech technologies quickly, and it’s unnecessarily difficult to blend solutions and assemble the ideal best-of-breed stack. But marketers do envision a more tech-driven future, and to that we say, ‘keep on going’.”
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