What CMOs need to learn from evolving marketing technology

A strong marketing platform powered by experienced IT team is necessary for businesses to succeed in a competitive market.

Research firm Gartner, which studied marketing technology trends for CMOs, says marketing tech / ad tech is gaining increased popularity, moving quickly from the basics to sophisticated tools.

While there are still thousands of vendors in the marketing tech /ad tech space, Adobe, Google, IBM, Oracle and Salesforce are the big five technology companies having the highest number of installations in place. Collectively, Adobe, Google, IBM, Oracle and Salesforce account for 36 percent of all reported installations in the marketing technology survey.

However, some categories — mobile marketing analytics, data visualization, SEM/SEO tools, ad verification services, and retargeting — have no reported deployments completed or underway from the big five.

The Gartner study further found that more than half of the respondents have deployed the marketing tech staples. Web analytics, web content management and email marketing top the list followed by survey / customer insight tools, data management platforms and content marketing platforms.

The current trend is — those firms currently deploying or planning to do – is in digital marketing analytics, lead management and/or multichannel campaign management.

Advanced marketers use more specialized technologies that deliver improved insights and business results through increased data use.

A blog on marketing technology by Oracle said that chief marketing officers are working with IT and finance teams to deliver a higher return on marketing efforts. In the past, the CMO wasn’t always viewed in an equal playing field with the CEO, CFO and CIO, but marketers are gaining traction in the C-suite.

A Gartner blog says investing in trends is sexier than relying on the tried and true. Snapchat may or may not be right for your brand, but email is becoming an increasingly overlooked workhorse for marketers.

Another Gartner research report, which is useful for CMOs, said 20 percent of brands will abandon their mobile apps by 2019 despite significant investment and hopes for positive ROI.

Competition for consumers is high amid the millions of options offered in app stores, and apps are expensive to support.

Astonishingly, retailers and brand marketers deploy AR applications to enhance the shopping experience.

The L’Oreal Paris MakeupGenius app enables consumers to “try on” products, test curated looks and purchase products from within the app.

Marketers are developing AR experiences primarily for smartphones; head-mounted displays (HMDs) will remain a niche market for AR.

Digital platform providers such Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, IBM and Microsoft are creating new business ecosystems through conversational artificial intelligence (AI) platforms to attract consumers.

The CMO Solution Guide called Insights on the Journey Toward Digital Agility released on January 17 says leveraging digital marketing to get closer to the customer was almost twice as important as using it to increase sales.

The journey to digital agility — as pointed out in the report — is paved with continuous planning, testing, and integration.

“To achieve maximum ROI, it’s critical that the CMO and CIO invest in open technology approaches and platforms that allow their organization to maximize the marketing technology investments made yesterday and today, while easily integrating the ones that come tomorrow,” said Sylvia Jensen, senior director, EMEA Marketing, Oracle Marketing Cloud.

Whichever method officers take to propel sales, CMOs must never forget that the customer is king and customer experience is what drives loyalty and word of mouth.

Arya MM
editor@infotechlead.com