The majority (61%) of marketers agree that marketing technology is at the heart of their organization. This sentiment has helped propel the marketing technology market in North America and the UK to $149.7 billion this year, and a report [download page] from MarTech Alliance and Moore Kingston Smith projects that the martech market is now worth about $344.8 billion, globally.
The UK and North American senior marketers surveyed say they typically allocate about one-quarter (23%) of their overall budget to marketing technology. And, that martech spend is only set to grow in the year, with 6 in 10 (61%) saying they plan to increase their martech budget over the next 12 months. While most plan to increase their spending on martech by somewhere between 1% and 10%, there are some who plan to increase it by more than 11%.
Despite the continued investment in marketing technology, there are barriers standing in the way of organizations reaching martech maturity. While most respondents say they are lacking the necessary governance and others are lacking the necessary marketing technology vendor solutions, one challenge that seems to continually pop up in terms of martech is a lack of skill set or knowledge of martech.
Respondents appear to be evenly split on whether their organization or typical client has the internal skills and talents needed to capitalize on the investment in marketing technology, with as many disagreeing as agreeing on this measure. Yet more than half (57%) find it challenging when recruiting for talent to work in martech or marketing operations, saying that the market is lacking marketers with the necessary martech, data or marketing ops skills and knowledge.
Even with the stated lack of martech skills out there, most organizations prefer to keep their martech talent in-house, with much fewer leaning towards outsourcing this talent. The burden of finding people with the right skill set to work with martech effectively isn’t totally in the hands of marketing. In fact, a plurality of respondents say the responsibility for managing martech is evenly split between marketing and IT, with the departments collaborating closely.
Looking Ahead
Other research shows that more than 2 in 5 companies are using four or more martech tools to run and measure a campaign. This recent report shows that the most added tools to marketing stacks in the past 12 months include social media management platforms, marketing analytics and attribution platforms, and digital commerce platforms. Looking to the next 12 months, more respondents expect to add digital commerce platforms and marketing analytics and attribution platforms to their marketing stack, along with digital experience platforms and customer data platforms.
Respondents also have expectations to focus on advancing certain martech functions in the next 12 months, with the most cited being martech strategy development, road mapping and budget management, as well as business intelligence, market, customer and competition research and insights. Others plan to focus on advancing omnichannel marketing strategy and design.
The full report can be found here.
About the Data: Findings are based on an August survey of 206 senior marketing (79% brand/21% agencies) at companies with at least 200 employees, split between the UK and North America.
