Marketing Software

When it comes to valuations, the marketing technology landscape seems to follow, more or less, a power law distribution. A few companies are worth a tremendous amount of money, the so-called “fat head” of such a distribution. And then there’s a “long tail” of ever smaller niche companies that trail behind them as far as the eye can see. Most of the excitement in the market is naturally around the fat head — as Willie …

29 marketing tech “unicorns” worth $1 billion+ each Continue Reading »

“It’s okay to love your marketing stack. Just don’t love your marketing stack.” That’s what was running in the back of head last week, as I was moderating a “Show Us Your Marketing Stack” panel at the B2B Marketing Innovation Summit run by Demandbase in San Francisco. Three top marketing executives — Susan Ganeshan, CMO of Clarabridge; Kristin Hersant, VP marketing at Livefyre; and Franz Aman, SVP of brand and demand at Informatica — had …

Marketers are fiercely passionate about their marketing stacks Continue Reading »

The following is a guest post written by Ashu Garg, general partner at Foundation Capital, with special advice from Julie Bernstein, COO for Stitch Fix and former CMO at Sephora. Ashu is the author of MarTech and the Decade of the CMO. I get pitched all the time — and I’ve heard it all. From the good to the bad, to the disastrous. As an early stage investor in martech companies, it’s part of my …

8 tips for marketing tech companies on pitching CMOs Continue Reading »

I’m sorry. I know a lot of people wish that the marketing technology merry-go-round would slow down and consolidate. And I fully appreciate why that’s desirable. Unfortunately, the evidence I keep encountering says we’re not there yet. Here are a few points on the curve that I’ve recently come across that suggest that marketing software remains a sector of frothy innovation: 1. Social Relationship Platforms (SRP). We’ve come a long way from simple social media …

I’m sorry, but marketing software is still a world in flux Continue Reading »

One of the most common questions I get asked about my marketing technology landscape graphic — other than the rhetorical exclamation, “Are you kidding me?” — is: Do you have an Excel spreadsheet of all these companies that you can share with me? My answers have been, no, I’m not kidding. And no, sorry, I don’t have a version in Excel. Well, Matt Heinz, Brian Hansford, Robert Pease, and the rest of the good team …

The Marketing Technology Landscape (2015) now in Excel Continue Reading »

I’d recommend that the next acquisition that some marketing cloud companies should make is a web design firm. Seriously, whatever the multiple — and I say this as a friend — it would be worth it. Acqui-hire, code red. I was struck by this last week when I was methodically checking each of their websites, trying to discern the state of their respective ISV communities. It ended up being really hard to answer that question, …

Should you judge a marketing cloud by its website? Continue Reading »

My doppelgänger (or am I his?) agrees: marketing technology isn’t consolidating yet. Digiday recently published a terrific podcast interview with Terry Kawaja, the CEO of LUMA Partners — an investment bank that specializes in adtech and martech companies. Of course, Terry and LUMA are probably most famously known for their amazing LUMAscapes that map out companies in marketing-related sectors such as display advertising, search, video, social, gaming, commerce, content, etc. Terry’s original display advertising LUMAscape …

For every marketing tech firm consolidated, 1.5 are born Continue Reading »

Ashu Garg is a general parter at the venture capital firm Foundation Capital, focusing on start-ups in the marketing technology sector. He is currently on the boards of TubeMogul, Localytics, and AdRise, and was formerly on the board of Aggregate Knowledge before it was acquired by Neustar. Before going VC in 2008, Ashu was the general manager for Microsoft’s online advertising business, worked at McKinsey in software and digital media, and set up Unilever’s operations …

VC predicts marketing tech will grow 10X in 10 years Continue Reading »

This is a guest post written by Anand Thaker, an advisor, entrepreneur, connector and fellow futurist in the Martech ecosystem. In the spirit of illustrating how marketing technology is thriving beyond just the Bay Area and New York, Anand gives a glimpse of the thriving martech ecosystem in Atlanta. Several years ago, after leaving Atlanta for some time, my wife and I were deciding on our next move. The company I worked for was acquired …

Have a Coke and a… marketing tech company? Why, yes Continue Reading »

We’re 8 weeks away from this year’s MarTech Conference in San Francisco, and I’m very excited about how it’s shaping up. There are so many great speakers who have agreed to share their experience and perspective on marketing technology management and how to harness marketing technology to shape customer experience. I’ll do a more detailed write-up of the presentations next week (there are a couple of early previews of what to expect here and here). …

50 fascinating marketing tech companies, all in one room Continue Reading »