Martech: 2020 and Beyond, a new report collaboratively produced by BDO, WARC, and the University of Bristol, estimates that the worldwide spend on marketing technology is $121.5 billion.
Their report focuses on martech spending in North America and the UK, where they’ve sized the market as growing from $34.3 billion in 2017 up to $65.9 billion here in 2019. The $121.5 global estimate is an extrapolation given the spend in those two markets — which given the explosion of martech across EMEA, APAC, and LATAM, seems reasonable to me.
“Engaging digital consumers is not just about spending dollars with Google, Facebook and Amazon,” stated Damian Ryan, a technology and media M&A partner at BDO, who produced the report.
“Global martech spend has leapt again by more than 20% in the last year as brands continue to seek a competitive edge and greater efficiencies in the digital economy. To put this into context, martech spend has almost doubled in just two short years in more developed markets such as North America and the UK.”
Martech spend has almost doubled in just two short years in more developed markets such as North America and the UK.
As part of the process of sizing the market, they surveyed marketers at more than 750 brands and agencies on their budgets for marketing technology — splitting out the data between in-house marketing technology and outsourced marketing technology spend:
To quote the report, “On average, brands in North America and the UK are spending 26% of their budgets on martech compared to 23% last year. That’s a 13% increase in martech budgets since last year, with the survey results showing little evidence of a decline in appetite for further tech.”
There’s a ton of other interesting insights in the report, so it’s worth downloading and reading through it. But one last finding I’ll point out — since it validates the first of the 3 Trends of the Second Golden Age of Martech that I proposed at the beginning of the year (and, hey, I’m not above looking for validation):
More companies are embracing a “platform” (one primary martech vendor, augmented by specialist providers) over a “suite” (the whole stack comes from one martech vendor).
I bet that trend will continue.
P.S. Speaking of martech spend, what happens when you decide to switch martech vendors or swap a homegrown system for a commercial solution (or vice versa)?
We’re running a study of “martech upgrades” with Jen Cannon and the team at MarTech Today. Will you take three minutes to answer a few questions about your experience in switching? We can all learn a lot from our collective adventures. Click here to participate.
Thank you!
