According to Gartner research, CMOs invested a quarter of their budgets into MarTech in 2022, but only 42% used their full capabilities.
So, how can marketers become more successful at using MarTech in 2023 and beyond? How can they build a successful MarTech strategy? And who can they turn to for help?
To find out, we spoke with James Buckle, Chief Digital Officer at PHD – an experienced ‘MarTech Missionary’ who has helped brands such as Volkswagen Group, Diageo, and HSBC, successfully choose and develop technology strategies across their businesses.
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PHD: How has marketing technology evolved and changed over the last few years?
JB: I think it has evolved, but not necessarily in terms of major areas of innovation – more iterations of existing pieces of technology.
What has happened [is that] ad tech or advertising technology has now increased the scope of its usability and impact to sit within the marketing technology landscape.
Take Data Management Platforms (DMPs), for example. Previously, they used to contain fairly simple datasets, but, as we can connect to more data signals than ever before, they have evolved into sophisticated Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) that are helping marketers better understand their consumers’ behaviours.
PHD: What are the benefits and opportunities of MarTech?
JB: For me, the benefits of and opportunities of marketing technology are really to have a better understanding of consumer behaviour and, in turn, the ability to deliver better consumer experiences.
That might seem simple because you’re dealing with very technical solutions, but fundamentally, that’s what it enables and marketers should understand what MarTech is available and, therefore, how it can allow them to deliver positive outcomes to their business and their consumers.
PHD: There are thousands of marketing technology solutions available out there. How can brands go about choosing the right ones for them?
JB: There are two ways of doing this. One is by recruiting the right experts in-house. People who have worked with specific technologies before or who have developed successful approaches for similar companies – either in brands or withing consultancies or agencies.
The other is by working with external partners to evaluate your requirements, what you are trying to retrieve, your strategy for growth, and then, the right technology to enable that.
In my opinion, the best strategy is a combination of both. It’s very easy to partner with generalist MarTech consultants, who understand how technology works; but it helps to bring in a trusted advisor who has worked with that technology, who knows how to enable those experiences, and can help you understand what the returns will be.
PHD: How do you set the right KPIs?
JB: It changes by vertical and by client type. From a broad perspective, marketing technology should influence all KPIs and all business outcomes that clients want to work.
The way that I would probably evaluate success is by measuring whether Martech has influenced the efficacy of your marketing approach, whether that is paid, earned, shared, or owned. Will this enable better consumer experiences which then have an impact on the broader marketing KPIs that you might be measuring, and then, in turn, your business KPIs.
Take the CPG vertical, for example. Really, the focus for all marketing activities should be on driving sales, so you have to evaluate within that lens.
PHD: What are the biggest challenges that marketers face?
JB: Part of your previous question was about how to understand the breadth of the landscape. That’s absolutely a challenge. It is an ever-moving target in terms of understanding ‘what’s the right thing that I should be doing?’.
I think the biggest challenge for MarTech overall – across the entire industry – is how do you put something in place that’s going to make be future-proofed to a degree or fit for purpose in the future?
PHD: Is there a one size fits all approach that you can copy across different brands?
JB: There isn’t; it depends on your type of business. How do consumers interact with your properties? Are you relying on third-party retail providers or partners to work with you? What is your consumer journey? Are you focused on content? Do you have a great onsite content strategy or do you not? What is that experience going to be?
It’s all well and good having technology in place, but if your experience is still less than ideal, consumers are not going to interact with you, so the value of that data is going to be less than it could be.
Some categories might be more suited or aligned to MarTech. DTC brands, for example, who are used to creating digitally native experiences, are already set up to utilise and understand their customer data. If you’re a legacy business, though, who might not be digitally native, you’ve got a few more hurdles to jump get yourself into a competitive position.
PHD: What advice do you have for brands looking to get started with implementing MarTech solutions?
JB: The main is deciding what your goal for marketing technology is.
Set the expectations within your business around what the potential return is from that, as well as what the value is on that.
That doesn’t necessarily need to be monetary; MarTech is not always going to provide cost efficiencies or anything along those lines.
I would also say that, for me, the first part – and this is probably more European-focused but is also the case within other regions of the world – is focussing on understanding what your data collection strategy is.
Your marketing solutions (in terms of, how you engage, how you look at onsite personalization, offsite personalization, and different types of marketing automation) won’t have any value if you don’t understand your consumers’ behaviours on-site.
So, focus on data collection and setting up the necessary consent signals that enable you to conduct better consumer analysis. That should be your starting point.
PHD: Why do we need MarTech?
JB: It’s a non-negotiable area of focus. The days are gone when you would not need it. You could be reliant on third-party data signals. You could be reliant on everything that the platforms are going to provide for you, but that isn’t going to set you up for success in the future – and so you need to have marketing technology.
A minimum in terms of a very basic implementation of it to be able to allow you to collect data in a way that’s going to be compliant, have the necessary consent, and then power those other outcomes.
The majority of businesses have some form of digital presence and interact with their consumers on digital platforms and interact with consumers have an expectation of having digital environments to interact with these brands within and so, you know, marketing technology is one layer of that.
But without a clear approach to that, you’re in danger of falling behind, especially as more disruptive brands and players enter the market. You need to adapt and adjust to compete in the future.
PHD: What is the future of MarTech?
JB: There are a lot of unknowns lying ahead; a lot of volatility, which is not new to us. It’s going to be interesting to understand the impact of things like antitrust lawsuits on marketing and technology solutions, for example.
I think what brands and marketers can do now though is to try and mitigate that risk by getting started with MarTech as soon as possible. So, when those unknown futures do come to fruition they’re able to adapt and advance, rather than be left at the back of the queue.
PHD: What’s the one piece of advice that you’d like marketers to take away?
JB: Simple: don’t sleepwalk into a problem. Be aware of where you are right now and if you don’t have any MarTech on your sites and if you don’t even have a strategy, use that as the impetus to get going with that conversation internally.
Use your agency partners and use your other partners across your marketing ecosystem to get started with MarTech now, because, while you might think it doesn’t matter today, you’ll find that it will matter in six months or a year when your competitors started to pull ahead and you’re stuck behind the curve.
