MarTech: Research and Strategies Behind Utilization

Recently, Ascend2 and its research partners fielded the Marketing Technology Utilization Survey. On the week of March 18, 2019, 245 marketing influencers responded. The resulting summary report, called Marketing Technology Utilization, which was published in April of 2019, represented the opinions of all the segments that were surveyed.

These segments included:

Number of Employees

More than 500 – 24%

50 to 500 – 34%

Fewer than 50 – 42%

Role in the Company

Owner/Partner/CXO – 36%

VP/Director/Manager – 46%

Non-Mgmt Professional – 18%

Primary Marketing Channel

B2B – 40%

B2C – 41%

Both B2B and B2C Equally – 19%

What did the research find?

Primary Objectives

The majority of marketing influencers found that improving marketing efficiency (61%) and increasing marketing ROI (57%) were primary objectives for their MarTech utilization strategy.

Strategic Success

About 43% of marketers consider a MarTech utilization strategy to be very successful (or best-in-class), at achieving their primary objectives, 52% somewhat successful, and only 5% said unsuccessful.

Critical Challenges

According to a plurality of marketing influencers, the most critical challenge to a MarTech utilization strategy is increasing marketing ROI (47%). The next two biggest-ranked critical challenges included improving marketing efficiency (40%) and attributing revenue to marketing (39%), both of which are concerns related to ROI.

Budget Trend

Of the marketing influencers surveyed, two-thirds (or close to 63%) think their MarTech utilization budget will increase moderately. More than a quarter (26%) think will it will increase significantly.

Objectives Versus Challenges

61% of the marketers surveyed found improving marketing efficiency to be a primary challenge, and 40% thought it to be a critical challenge. 57% considered increasing marketing ROI to be a primary challenge, and 47% found it to be a critical challenge.

MarTech Effectiveness

More than half of the marketing influencers (53%) found marketing automation/email/crm to be the most effective MarTech. Marketing data/dashboards/analytics came in second at 43%.

Adding to the MarTech Stack

Marketers think new technologies are being added to the MarTech at a rapid pace, with 39% saying they add to it monthly, 39% quarterly, 21% semi-annually, and 12% annually or greater.

MarTech Difficulty

Half of the marketing influencers surveyed found optimization, personalization, and testing to be the most difficult MarTech to utilize. 40% thought the most difficult was experience/relationship marketing, and 39% said marketing data/dashboards/analytics.

Utilization Resources

64% of the marketers said that they use a combination of in-house and outsourced MarTech utilization efforts. Only 19% only outsource, and only 17% use in house only.

Effectiveness Versus Difficulty

More than half surveyed (53%) found marketing automation/email/crm to be the most effective MarTech, and only 27% found it to be the most difficult to utilize. 43% found marketing data/dashboards/analytics to be the most effective, and only 39% thought that it was the most difficult to utilize.

Conclusions

The data quite clearly points to more and more marketing influencers thinking that MarTech utilization will become more important to marketing successful, particularly when it relates to marketing efficiency and ROI. Marketing automation/email/crm stand out as what is thought to be the most effective MarTech and the least difficult to make use of. Wise marketers will take note of the research and plan accordingly.

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