February 2013 - Chief Marketing Technologist

How formal should your marketing experiments be?

February 28, 2013 / Marketing Management / By Scott Brinker / 1 Comment

How formal should your marketing experimentation programs be? That was the question I was asking myself looking at the above “test definition brief” that was included in a report jointly produced by Google and the Marketing Leadership Council: The Digital Evolution in B2B Marketing. The report — which I think is terrific overall for a behind-the-scenes look at how several larger enterprises are integrating digital marketing more holistically into their organizations — raises the concern …

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Marketing data: exploration vs. confirmation

February 24, 2013 / Marketing Data / By Scott Brinker / 3 Comments

There is tremendous excitement around data-driven marketing. A whole catalog of data-related phrases are echoing throughout the marketing world: big data, data mining, data science, data exchanges, data management platforms, controlled experiments (“big testing“), analytics, metrics, dashboards, etc. But the data driving all these different activities isn’t quite the same. Or, more accurately, the contexts in which marketers use that data aren’t the same. Different data-driven activities change how you should think about data, manage it, …

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The blurring of agencies, software vendors, and IT shops

February 14, 2013 / Marketing Software / By Scott Brinker / 11 Comments

The Jordan Edmiston Group, Inc. (JEGI), a leading investment bank in the marketing and media space, recently released a new report on the enterprise marketing management (EMM) stack. They start by noting that from 2010-2012, four companies (“The Big Four”) have invested over $20 billion in marketing technology M&A: Adobe, IBM, Oracle, and Salesforce. But they quickly point out that some of the biggest disruption resulting from these acquisitions hasn’t been in the enterprise software …

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Data is marketing’s gateway drug to software fluency

February 13, 2013 / Marketing Data / By Scott Brinker / 2 Comments

In observing the language that CIOs and CMOs alike keep using around the big data bubble — where both parties seem ready to acknowledge that marketing is in the hot seat for making productive use of data — I’m starting to conclude one of two things: “Data” is a euphemism for all application-level marketing technology. There’s an illusion that data-driven marketing can thrive independent of any deeper engagement with the technology that generates or harnesses …

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Moving a blog is quintessential marketing technologist work

February 4, 2013 / Marketing Tactics / By Scott Brinker / 3 Comments

Migrating a blog from one platform to another reminds me of the saying: “In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice, they’re different.” In the process of moving this blog from Typepad to WordPress — on the occasion of our 5th anniversary — I was struck by how this is exactly the sort of work for which marketing technologists are ideally suited. The blog itself is a marketing mission. There are all kinds …

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5 years worth of marketing technology geekery

February 1, 2013 / Other / By Scott Brinker / 10 Comments

This month marks the 5th anniversary of the launch of this blog. The momentum that has grown around these topics of marketing technology management, marketing technologists, marketing software, marketing data, agile marketing, etc., has been incredibly exciting. Thank you for reading, sharing, and contributing. On the occasion of this 5th anniversary, I decided to invest in fixing up the place a little. First, a fresh coat of paint. I commissioned a logo to give the …

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