The MarTech landscape has grown tremendously over recent years. With so many solutions and tools to choose from, marketers now have thousands of options when it comes to building out their marketing technology stacks and leveraging technology to meet strategic marketing objectives.
Scott Brinker’s 2018 edition of the Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic shows 27% growth over last year. He produced his first supergraphic in 2011, when there were only approximately 150 vendors competing for market share. Today’s marketing technology landscape now boasts an estimated 6,829 MarTech solutions from over 6,200 vendors!
The growth of this industry has been propelled by a record $14 billion in investments supporting the MarTech space along with high demand for new and evolving technologies that help support modern marketers in their efforts.
Although many predicted the industry would see large-scale consolidation with a countless number of mergers and acquisitions, this year’s long list of logos seems to prove the opposite. While there were a handful of notable acquisitions within the last year, the amount of growth within the world of MarTech greatly outpaced any consolidation that had taken place.
It’s quality, not quantity
In the past, many focused on the substantial size and growth of the industry. Attention is now turning towards the capabilities and value the marketing technology industry provides and what its solutions have to offer marketers and their organizations.
While growth will undoubtedly continue in the coming years, the most important factor to consider when thinking about the number of MarTech vendors available is how they can make marketing better, more innovative, and more humanized.
As Brinker himself puts it: “It’s good that attention is shifting away from the MarTech landscape. Because it’s not about how many marketing technologies there are — or how many you use in your own marketing stack. What matters is how you harness these technologies to deliver compelling marketing and remarkable customer experiences.”
Marketers that know their customers and understand how to provide value to them will always have a competitive advantage over marketers that have dozens of tools but can’t use them to effectively communicate with their buyers.
The number of technologies available in any given stack is useless if you don’t have the proper people, processes, and programs in place to support effective marketing strategies. Technology can support good marketing, not create it.
The massive amount of solutions available may be overwhelming for some and exciting for others, but regardless, marketing cannot depend solely on technology — nor can it successfully function without it. Marketing is both a science and an art, and both elements must exist in today’s marketing world.
Using technology to your advantage
As the marketing technology landscape continues to grow, keep in mind that it’s not about the number of tools or latest innovations, but rather how that technology can improve efficiency, build trust among those inside and outside the organization, and reinstill some of that traditional creativity and authenticity back into marketing.
With so many technologies available, it’s an exciting time to be a marketer. From evaluating and implementing the latest MarTech tools to defining and operationalizing award-winning strategies, learn more about how DemandGen can help!
As a Marketing Associate, Justin Chormicle manages DemandGen’s social media, leads the company’s video marketing strategy, and supports many other demand generation efforts that help connect tomorrow’s Marketing Heroes with the support and knowledge they need to get started on their digital marketing journey.
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