Marketing Software

It’s been said that the explosion of software vendors in marketing is an anomaly. Certainly if you compare that with enterprise software markets as we knew them ten years ago, that’s true. People look at my landscape of nearly 1,000 marketing technology vendors — which is only a representative sample — and shake their heads in disbelief. I’ve made the case for why I think 1,000-plus marketing software vendors could be the new normal. Yet …

It’s not just MarTech: FinTech, LegalTech, HRTech, etc. Continue Reading »

Yesterday, I moderated a panel on “the present and future of marketing automation” at MarketingProf’s B2B Forum with Atri Chatterjee, CMO of Act-On; Jon Miller, co-founder and VP marketing of Marketo; John Stetic, group VP products of Oracle Marketing Cloud; and You Mon Tsang, CEO of OutMarket (formerly the Vocus Marketing Cloud). Dashing the hopes of those who attended the auto-race to see fiery crashes, there was little bloodsport — to the fine credit of …

4 marketing automation vendors, 1 stage, 0 casualties Continue Reading »

Hold on to your butts: there’s been over $21.8 billion of venture capital and private equity invested marketing technology companies. And that doesn’t include money raised from public offerings, M&A deals, or untracked investments from angels, friends and family — or the hundreds of companies who weren’t included on my landscape (as I always disclaim, it’s definitely not comprehensive). In other words, real investment in space is much greater than $21.8 billion. Earlier this week, …

Over $21.8 billion of funding for marketing technology Continue Reading »

We’re going to try something different here. Louis Gudema, the president of marketing consultancy revenue + associates, submitted a guest post to me with the contrarian (?) viewpoint that marketing technology is not as big of a market as some claim. He mostly takes issue with the “market opportunity” stated in HubSpot’s recent S-1 filing — not to pick on HubSpot per se, but because their S-1 is the most recent attempt to frame the …

Point/counterpoint: how big is the martech market? Continue Reading »

A lot of people look at my marketing technology landscape graphic and protest, “There’s too damn much software in marketing!” To many, it’s inconceivable that a marketer would ever be able to manage working with more than a handful of software products — and ideally, they’d work with just one. But I believe this overlooks the true pervasiveness of software. So as a little thought exercise, I’d like to demonstrate how most marketers are already …

Marketers regularly use over 100 software programs Continue Reading »

This week, HubSpot filed for a $100 million IPO. As a “marketing technology” story, that’s remarkable enough at face value. There have been only a handful of pure martech companies that have made it from a start-up dream to a publicly-traded company. It’s an extraordinary accomplishment in a crowded space. Their IPO will provide further evidence that this space is maturing — and will secure HubSpot’s position as one of the major marketing platforms in …

The revolution will not be advertised: HubSpot files for $100 million IPO Continue Reading »

Pop quiz! Write down the names of three multi-billion companies who either provide a “marketing cloud” today — or are potential contenders in that space over the next few years. Done? I’ll bet you a beer at MarTech that there was one company who wasn’t on your list: Google. (Okay, be honest: they wouldn’t have been on your list if you weren’t reading an article titled “Could Google be the ultimate marketing cloud company?”) Google? …

Could Google be the ultimate marketing cloud company? Continue Reading »

Tag management, at its core, is a relatively straightforward marketing technology — but one that has taken on new life with the rise of the home-grown, heterogeneous marketing cloud. First, a brief orientation on tag management: Many marketing software applications require marketers to insert little snippets of code — “tags” — into their web pages to enable things like visitor analytics, remarketing, A/B testing, visitor profiling, personalization, etc. Large sites can end up with dozens …

Tag management software as marketing middleware Continue Reading »

A couple of months ago, I was honored to be invited to present at The Next Web Conference in Amsterdam. I gave a 19-minute, TED-style talk on “The Golden Age of Marketing Software” — a whirlwind overview of the marketing technology landscape, the dynamics of marketing as a technology-powered discipline, and the rise of the marketing technologist. Yes, all that in 19 minutes. TNW professionally recorded and edited my presentation and was kind enough to …

The Golden Age of Marketing Software (video) Continue Reading »

On the topic of “open marketing platforms” — foundational marketing software systems that make it easy to plug in or connect with other marketing applications built by third-parties — I admit that I’m thoroughly biased. As an industry observer, I’ve staked my prognostication badge on the case for consolidated platforms and diversified ecosystems (2012), the emerging third-party era of marketing automation (2013), and open platforms as the enablers for 1,000+ marketing technology vendors as the …

Ridiculously biased in favor of open marketing platforms Continue Reading »