Marketing Software

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 martech capabilities are being used. That’s down from 58% utilization in 2020. You only need two points to draw a …

When is a martech stack too complex? Continue Reading »

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 of hundreds of CRMs or marketing automation tools? They’re all just storing the same customer fields and mail merging them …

Why there are 10,000 martech products that “kinda all do the same thing” (but not really) Continue Reading »

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 discussed in more detail in his accompanying release write-up. I first came across Jay’s work with his 2017 landscape, where …

Channel, partner, and ecosystem tech is one of the hottest categories in martech today Continue Reading »

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 on top of commercial platforms Instead of being forced to choose between X or Y — which was never fun …

The 2nd Age of Martech has arrived, and it’s all about convergence in ecosystems Continue Reading »

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 G2 responds in this article, “Hold my beer.” While there are certainly dynamics specific to marketing that feed the frenzy …

Think the martech landscape is big? Here’s the size of the software industry overall Continue Reading »

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 work/project management (19%) apps were the most frequently replaced. As I highlighted in blue in the chart above, the #1 …

Marketers keep replacing major martech apps, integration #1 factor for replacements Continue Reading »

Yesterday — #MartechDay, yay! — we released the global 2022 marketing technology landscape, after taking a year off in 2021. It grew a remarkable 24% to 9,932 solutions. To make it readable, we actually made it fully interactive at martechmap.com, where you can search, filter, zoom, and more. It’s pretty wild. But despite its mind-boggling scale, the martech landscape has always been a sidebar to the real story of how technology is changing marketing. The …

32 illustrated martech stacks entered in The Stackies 2022: Marketing Tech Stack Awards Continue Reading »

It’s #MartechDay! I’m delighted to finally share with you the 2022 marketing technology landscape, a joint production between myself and Frans Riemersma of MartechTribe (and a whole bunch of wonderful contributors). Here are the key things you want to know: The number of solutions is now 9,932 — up 24% from 2020 Here is a slide version of the image you can use in decks and content Here is a high-res PDF you can use …

Marketing Technology Landscape 2022: search 9,932 solutions on martechmap.com Continue Reading »

You might already be leaping to a conclusion. “It seems like every other week, I read about a major acquisition. Surely the 2020 martech landscape with its 8,000 solutions was Peak Martech! The only question is by how much has the 2022 landscape shrunk.” Perhaps. Indeed, the martech industry sees a tremendous amount of M&A activity. LUMA Partners, one of the leading investment banks in martech — and the creators of the original adtech landscape …

Martech is consolidating, but what will the 2022 landscape reveal? Continue Reading »

This is the 8th year we’re running The Stackies. It’s an awards program that invites marketers to share a single slide illustrating their martech stack — the different apps and platforms they use and how they conceptualize them working together. I’d encourage you to participate (deadline for entries April 29). It’s a fantastic way to contribute to our community’s understanding of how martech fits into the function and flow of modern marketing. However, even if …

10+ ways to visualize your martech stack Continue Reading »