Making Money On-line: For CMOs and Martech It's Not About Spending, It's About the Right Spending

Tuesday 7 March 2017

For CMOs and Martech It's Not About Spending, It's About the Right Spending

It's not about data. It's about the right data. How many times have you heard that or words to that effect? And quite frankly some marketers can never hear it enough as far too many still don't know the difference.

But that's another topic for another time. This is all about marketing technology — martech to you and me. And to say the martech landscape or ecosystem is a crowded space would be an understatement of monumental proportions. Before you consider that to be just an exaggeration, consider the following:

There are nearly 4,000 martech solutions on the market today.
That number has increased over 2500% since 2011.

So, there's no shortage of options which is not necessarily a good thing. But be that as it may, the good news, at least on the surface is more and more marketers agree that their company is spending the right amount on martech as seen in the eMarketer chart below.

As you can see from 2015 to 2016 the number of marketers who "strongly agreed" or "agreed" increased, which on the surface, again, is a good thing.

Below the Surface

Ok great, marketers are spending more on martech. Wonderful. But what are they getting for their money? Are they spending their money wisely or are they merely spending to spend so they can tell boast that "we increased our spending on martech by 25% last year?"

Being the sports fan I am I will use a sports-related analogy to convey my point. History is loaded with examples of sports franchises spending gobs of money on free agent players only to see their investments go down the drain. Team A decides they want to throw tons of cash at a given player or players in the hopes of a quick fix without one thought to how that player or players will fit in with their overall team.

Integration ring a bell?

So Team A, because they can, do just that. They open their wallets and give enormous contracts to free agent players with the hopes that this will buy them a title. More often than not, however, the literally hundreds of millions of dollars spent return very little on their investment and most assuredly no title.

Caveat Emptor

We all know the English translation to this is buyer beware or let the buyer beware. But for as much as this is true in sports free agents and washing machines it is also true in marketing technology. You, as the CMO or the buyer - no not literally but you know what I mean - must be fully aware of what it is you're buying.

Fortunately for you there is help. Download The Guide To Building Your Marketing Technology Stack and learn what questions you need to ask of any potential marketing solution provider before you commit AKA spend.