Chief Marketer released a “2019 Martech Outlook Survey” this week which reveals some interesting insight into the industry. The survey includes responses from both B2B and B2C marketers.

Key findings include:

54% of marketers think martech budgets will increase next year.
Many marketers (39%, the largest group) report spending 10-25% of their marketing budgets on martech.
Top choices of types of martech where people plan to invest in the next year are email, automation, and social media.
50% of marketers said their biggest frustration around purchasing is the volume of solutions in the market.

The global marketing automation software market is expected to grow at a CAGR of approximately 8% during the forecast period 2017-2023.

1. Email Campaigns - with NO personalisation
2. Long (text-heavy) eBooks
3. Focusing on quality - not quantity in blogs
4. Overly complex lead scoring algorithms
5. Organic only Facebook strategies
6. Relying on a text-based SEO strategy

Prediction 1: By 2021, Privacy Will Have Been Redefined from "the Selective Sharing of Data" to "the Value of Data" and Digital Marketplaces Will Have Emerged That Enable Consumers to Provide Data in Return for VIP Services, with up to 10% of Consumers in Developed Countries Participating

Prediction 2: By 2021, at Least 15% of Businesses' Standard Customer Experience Decisions Will Be Handled by Algorithms as Companies Shift from Person-to-Person (P2P) to Machine-to-Person (M2P) Engagement and Transactions

Prediction 3: By 2020, 20% of Marketers Will Share Customer Experience Budgets, Processes, Metrics, and Compensation with All Other Customer-Facing Functions in the Enterprise Including Sales, Finance, Fulfillment, Customer Service, and Contact Center

Prediction 4: By 2019, 80% of B2B Marketers Will Have at Least One Account-Based Marketing Campaign in the Field

Prediction 5: By 2019, Available Inventory in Marketing Databases Will Shrink by 40%

Prediction 6: By 2021, 70% of Digital Advertising and Marketing Will Be Augmented or Automated Using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Prediction 7: By the End of 2021, 75% of Large B2B Events Will Personalize Participant Experiences Using Human-to-Machine Technologies; Augmented Reality, Sensors, and the Use of Biometric Data Will Propel Events into Brand Differentiating Powerhouses

Prediction 8: By 2021, 25% of B2B Companies Will Reshape Their Marketing Organizations into Nonhierarchical Structures, Aided by Collaborative Technologies; New Forms, Such as Circles, Squads, and Tribes, Will Help Companies Break out of Silos and Provide Better Customer Experiences

Prediction 9: By 2020, 60% of B2B CMOs Will Be Held Accountable for at Least One Customer-Oriented Metric as Companies Accept Customer Centricity as Core to the Marketing Mission; Metrics for Loyalty, Advocacy, and Quality Take Their Place Alongside Revenue-Related Metrics

Prediction 10: By 2020, 50% of B2B Companies Will See a Reduction in Sales, General, and Administrative (SG&A) Costs of up to 15% as More Cost-Effective Automated and Algorithmic Marketing Eclipses the High Cost of Selling

See the trends that are having the greatest influence on changes to b-to-b marketing strategies over the next two years.

Growth in Internet population is slowing, but growth in online ads is accelerating.

Ecommerce growth is also accelerating.

Gaming continues to lead and shape the online experience.

Revenue in the music industry is rising again.

Digital health care is approaching an inflection point.

China is growing as a tech rival to the U.S.

Immigrants are core to the Valley’s DNA.

Most companies use 6 or more martech tools or platforms in their marketing stacks, research finds. Fully 1 in 3 don't have a strategic plan for developing their stack. Check out more stats!

Paying with your Face - Using facial recognition technology to define the many unique features of a person’s face, algorithms are proving to be reliable enough to define identities through geometric and spatial calculations. Of the many applications for facial recognition, one of the potentially profitable is financial transactions. While these technologies are proving to be reliable, privacy concerns are being raised. Key companies in this area include Alibaba, Baidu, and Face++.

Marketing technology has become a fact of life, as new data from digital agency Squiz attests. Roughly two-thirds of senior marketers surveyed in Australia, the UK and the US have invested heavily in marketing technology over the past year, the study shows.

Another third of respondents said they have either invested a little to add to their existing marketing technology stack, or have taken their first steps in marketing technology.

• Of marketers under age 35, 86 per cent are optimistic about the power and influence of marketing in an organisation over the next few years while 56 per cent of marketers age 56 and older feel confident.
• Of younger marketers (35 and under), 78 per cent are confident that organisations should be making investments right now; only 59 per cent of marketers age 36-45 felt now was a good time. But this growing optimism from younger marketers has not yet resulted in growing budgets.
• Marketing budgets are ripe for growth. More marketers are expecting increased budgets in the next six months. 36 per cent of marketers expect an increase, up 8 per cent from Q2 2016. This is a stark contrast from January 2016, when 22 per cent of respondents felt their marketing budgets would decrease.
• Marketing budget allocation has remained stable, but when it comes to budget cuts, 24 per cent of respondents said they would reduce their media placement budget, but only 4 per cent would cut their analytics budget.

Nobody loves them. Everybody hates them. Pity the poor CMO. 

• Marketers say 47% of the c-suite outside of their department use some marketing technology in their roles.
• 52% of global marketers feel that other C-level execs do not understand marketing. 
• 35% think that their CEO strongly realises the potential revenue uplift and saving of martech investment. 
• Marketers think that just a third (33 per cent) of CIOs understand the value of martech at a financial level.
• 27%  say that their marketing team is working closely with the CEO. 
• 97% say that marketing technology has made the marketing department more strategic in its approach
• Last year there was increased investment in platforms such as CMS (83 per cent) and CRM (62 per cent)
• 97% have invested in some form of marketing technology in the past 12 months. 60% were adding to their existing stack

According to software company Squiz’s latest State of Marketing Technology report, 78 per cent of marketers feel confident in explaining the value of technology investments, but there is a disconnect with the rest of the boardroom.

The report, which surveyed 600 senior marketing professionals across Australia, the UK and the US, found 97 per cent of global marketers believe that marketing technology has allowed the marketing department to become more strategic in its approach and 43 per cent say they’ve been able to develop more data-driven KPIs since investing in it.

Yet despite these benefits, the report revealed more than half of marketers think c-level execs don’t understand marketing and only 35 per cent think their CEO strongly realises the potential revenue uplift and saving of martech investment.

Nearly 80 percent of companies spend less than 30 percent of their time and budget on customer retention-focused messaging and content, according to Corporate Visions' State of the Conversation Report, "Customer Retention and Renewal Messaging: Mission Critical, But Missing in Action."

What's more, the report found that 42 percent of respondents say their companies invest less than 10 percent of their marketing budgets on renewal messaging efforts.

Interestingly, the survey reveals that nearly 60 percent of B2B professionals don't think the messaging for their renewal conversations should differ from their customer acquisition messaging—a finding that flies in the face of recent Corporate Visions academic research, which found that the messaging strategies that work best for winning new customers are not effective for securing renewals.

Last year, the Adobe Digital Trends report showed data-driven marketing to be the top priority for marketers, with 90% of survey respondents citing it as their number one choice.

1. 42% of B2B marketers plan to test or deploy marketing automation this year (DemandGen Report)
2. 59% of companies do not fully use the technology they have available (Ascend2)
3. 80% of marketing automation users saw an increase in leads (VentureBeat)
4. 12% of marketing automation users saw an increase of leads by 50% or more (VentureBeat)
5. 10% of marketers feel they are able to fully execute mature marketing automation strategies (Forrester)
6. 80% of B2B marketers consider it a core requirement of their jobs to understand and use marketing technology (Forrester)