As B2B companies pour money into the systems and technologies needed to transform their marketing operations into truly global digital performance engines, we will continue to see a steady rise in marketing spend as chief marketing officers leverage their new capabilities and ability to drive (and measure) return on investment on an unprecedented scale. Because of the marketplace’s overall digital transformation, B2B CMOs are now in a better position to argue for more ad spend.

Last week, eMarketer announced its first B2B digital advertising forecast, predicting the space will total $4.6 billion in 2018, up 13 percent from this year’s projected total of $4.07 billion. What’s more, when comparing next year’s forecast versus 2013, B2B digital ad budgets will have grown by 111 percent in just five years.

The growth figures for B2B media spend actually understate the share of corporate budgets going into B2B marketing activities if you consider the material technology investments that companies are making to drive performance and efficiency from their ad spends. This investment in digital transformation of the end-to-end B2B marketing stack is allowing deeper insights, better targeting and overall efficiency in driving engagement, leads and actions.

Once again, offered the opportunity to lead, marketing has shrunk to the occasion. Not all marketers, and not all companies, of course — some CMOs have genuinely grasped the mantle. But for too many, the technology challenge proved a bridge too far. As with digital leadership, many marketers overreached with the promises they made to the C-Suite, leaving them exposed when the expected ROI failed to materialise.

And that is reflected in spending this year. Last year’s survey showed 27 per cent of marketing budget was allocated to martech, that dropped to 22 per cent this year. And overall spending on marketing as a percentage of total expense also declined.

In fact, it’s possible that the CMOs’ moment in the technology sunshine may be passing. The sheer complexity of the marketing technology ecosystem — and the huge wins to be derived by more fully integrating marketing into the wider corporate tech stack — suggest to us that IT will take an increasingly prominent role in martech decision making. How CMOs respond over the next 12 months will answer the question. 

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Martech myth No. 1: You can buy a fully integrated digital marketing suite

Martech myth No. 2: You're way behind the curve

Some martech sales people try to make prospects or customers feel as though they're behind the technology adoption curve. The reality? "It's still the early days of martech," Regli said, citing Real Story Group research that suggests 52 to 54 percent of enterprises are still in the "just starting" phase of digital marketing adoption.

Martech myth No. 3: One vendor's tools will meet all your needs

Martech myth No. 4: You'll be up and running in no time

Martech myth No. 5: Training isn't required

Martech myth No. 6: Martech tools scale easily

Martech myth No. 7: Other marketers love these tools

Martech myth No. 8: One vendor can serve as the marketing data warehouse

Martech myth No. 9: One vendor can provide the DAM system

Martech myth No. 10: Martech tools understand sentiment

Sentiment analysis, including the interpretation of tweets, Facebook posts and other social media updates to be positive, negative, or neutral, is still difficult for machines, according to Regli. For example, Real Story Group posted a negative tweet about Microsoft SharePoint, but one martech tool's interpreted the tweet to be negative against Real Story Group and not SharePoint, she said.