Marketing Software

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 »

The battle of the marketing clouds is heating up. Last month Oracle announced its unified Oracle Marketing Cloud, and yesterday IBM introduced ExperienceOne — both massive visions of how all the different acquisitions they’ve made in the marketing space will be stitched together into more cohesive offerings. But with all these proclamations of marketing technology nirvana, I have one overriding criterion that I look for: do they embrace an open model for third-party marketing applications? …

Adobe embraces open model for its Marketing Cloud too Continue Reading »

My fellow marketing technology enthusiasts, mark this week in your journals. Here at their Marketing Nation Summit in San Francisco, Marketo just triggered a major inflection point in our industry. First, let me set the stage for the significance of what they’ve done. For a number of large companies assembling marketing “suites,” the narrative they’ve been preaching is: buy from us, and you’ll get everything you need in one box. Buy our cloud or hub, …

Boom! Marketo ignites the real marketing platform wars Continue Reading »

Overcrowded. That was probably the most common remark to my latest marketing technology landscape. Well, aside from more colorful exclamations that decorum prevents me from repeating. And the truth is that this graphic, even with nearly 1,000 companies represented, was far from complete. There are hundreds of great companies that weren’t included: AppNexus, AdColony, Addroid, Adestra, Aginity, Ambassador, Amobee, Amplifinity, Avoka, and AWeber are just the ones beginning with the letter “A” that people noted …

What if 1,000+ marketing technology vendors were the new normal? Continue Reading »

UPDATE: The 2020 Marketing Technology Landscape is now available. The short version: the above graphic is the latest incarnation of my marketing technology landscape supergraphic (click for a high-resolution 2600×1950 version, 4.7MB). It represents a whopping 947 different companies that provide software for marketers, organized into 43 categories across 6 major classes. A high-resolution PDF version is also available (14.3MB). Please feel free to copy, repost, distribute, and use this graphic “as is” in any …

Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic (2014) Continue Reading »

I started working on a new version of a marketing landscape that will be released early next month. The last one I did was back in 2012, and a lot has happened since then. One thing in particular that has surprised me in my research is how much the marketing automation category has expanded. While I’ve expected the overall marketing technology space to expand, I’ve largely subscribed to the narrative that the marketing automation category …

The marketing automation super-collider of 2014 Continue Reading »