Ever see the miniseries From the Earth to the Moon? Great story about the Apollo moon missions. I’m pretty sure it was in one of those episodes that I most remember the impactful difference between “unit tests” and “system tests.” Getting people on the moon required a huge number of different component technologies, many each […]
Tech stacks are still large, but orchestration can make all the difference Read More »
2023 will be a fascinating but challenging year for marketing. Macroeconomic headwinds are colliding with rising customer expectations for better digital experiences. Martech stacks are consolidating under economic pressure. Yet at the same time, major innovations with generative AI, first-party/second-party data, ecosystem strategies, and fragmenting media channels are driving important changes to marketing’s digital capabilities.
What to expect in martech in 2023 and how to harness it to your advantage Read More »
tl;dr — The State of Partner Ops and Programs is a “must read” report for martech. A month ago, I wrote about how channel, partner, and ecosystem tech is one of the hottest categories in martech today. As businesses become increasingly interwoven with each other in serving customers in a digital world — where nearly
Partner Ops: The forgotten ops that’s suddenly thriving in the ecosystem era Read More »
At many companies — but not all — their martech stack has become too complex. Aside from the anecdotal evidence that I frequently hear on LinkedIn and Twitter threads, Gartner’s most recent Marketing Technology Survey frames the problem quantitatively: on average, the 324 enterprise marketing technology leaders they surveyed reported that only 42% of their
When is a martech stack too complex? Read More »
One of the perennial criticisms of the martech landscape is that “most of these products all do the same thing.” Send an email. Render a web page. Analyze some data. This criticism has grown louder in proportion to the growth of the landscape. With an increasingly exasperated tone, people ask, for example, “What’s the point
Jay McBain, formerly of Forrester and now with tech analyst firm Canalys, is the world’s leading expert in partner, channel, and ecosystem technology. Where I’ve gone broad with the martech landscape, Jay has gone deep with his own ecosystem tech landscape. He recently released his 2022 Channels Ecosystem Landscape, shown in the image above but
Channel, partner, and ecosystem tech is one of the hottest categories in martech today Read More »
In 2019, I hypothesized that we were on the cusp of a Second Golden Age of Martech. The defining characteristic of this new era was a shift from dichotomies to convergences: From suite vs. best-of-breed to integrated platform ecosystems From software vs. services to blended delivery models with both From build vs. buy to customization
The 2nd Age of Martech has arrived, and it’s all about convergence in ecosystems Read More »
“We’re entering a post-digital-transformation era, where companies are no longer planning to become ‘digital.’ They are digital.” I didn’t think that was a particularly controversial statement, which I wrote back in April while working on this year’s martech landscape. It’s hard to inventory all of the ways in which technology is now embedded in marketing
Are we “digital” yet? An algorithmic answer to a philosophical question Read More »
Over the 11 years that I’ve been publishing the martech landscape, as it mushroomed from ~150 solutions to ~10,000, I’ve seen many people react to it as an anomaly. “What is it about marketing that spawns so many software apps? Surely no other profession has to deal with such sprawl!” To which software review site
Think the martech landscape is big? Here’s the size of the software industry overall Read More »
My friends at MarTech.org recently released their latest Martech Replacement Survey 2022, where marketers shared which apps they’ve replaced over the past 18 months, what their primary motivation was in doing so, and what were their most important factors in choosing the replacement solution. Marketing automation (24%), CRM (23%), SEO (23%), email marketing (22%), and
Marketers keep replacing major martech apps, integration #1 factor for replacements Read More »
