Data is fueling martech spending: Companies are spending on technology that will allow them to gather and store their own data, access information to make decisions, and act as needed.
- “An important part of a modern martech stack has to be a unified profile that spans identities, understands behavioral information at an individual level, but also on the B2B side at an account level,” Stephen Streich, vice president of product at Oracle CX Marketing, told us in an interview.
- Data is an opportunity, but also a challenge; valid and compliant data (30%) and data integration (26%) are two areas where worldwide B2B marketers feel martech stacks need to improve.
Build-your-own-stack: Companies often turn to a number of providers to build a technology stack that suits their specific needs. Major players such as Adobe, Oracle, and Salesforce provide solutions that help companies perform a wide spectrum of marketing activities. Many smaller providers including startups offer solutions that are focused on a narrower range of marketing functions.
- “The predominant model that will likely win out for the most part is a hybrid one where there is a sort of a [center] of gravity with one vendor,” said Streich. “But not everybody does everything, and the market continues to evolve and innovate very quickly.”
- But builder beware: 17% of B2B marketers say a poorly integrated martech stack is one of their top marketing challenges.
Convergence ascendant: As organizations look to find ways to become more efficient, martech is becoming increasingly integrated into the rest of a company’s tech stack.
- “We're seeing the lines between martech and sales tech blurring,” said Jon Miller, CMO of Demandbase. “You see it in all sorts of forms, probably the most obvious one is companies investing in sales engagement tools like Outreach and Salesloft.”
- B2B and B2C marketing professionals believe that customer service and customer loyalty are the two most valuable business applications to integrate into their martech stacks, per Ascend2 and Oracle.
B2B's power: B2B is more than 30% of total spending, and this share is expected to grow moderately over the next couple of years.
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B2B martech spending will hit $6.59 billion by the end of the year and exceed $8.5 billion by 2024. B2B growth will outpace B2C.