In The First Golden Age of Martech, the US marketing ecosystem grew 50% faster than GDP

I’ve called the past decade of the 2010’s The First Golden Age of Martech. It was an explosion of both a new industry (martech) and a new profession (marketing technologists). I’ve spilled a gigabyte of digital ink on why this next decade will be The Second Golden Age of Martech (including a recent update on how platform dynamics are driving this next...

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Why does the massive landscape of marketing services firms not bother people the way martech does?

The large size of the marketing technology landscape stirs many emotions in the marketing community. Excitement. Frustration. Awe. Anger. Yes, anger. Just last week, I was hotly accused by someone on LinkedIn of stoking FUD — fear, uncertainty, and doubt — simply by publishing it. Those vehement reactions always surprise me. It’s just a count of martech...

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7 really bad martech “dad jokes” for Father’s Day

The best part of being a dad? Well, okay, maybe not the best, but somewhere in the top five. A legitimate excuse for telling “dad jokes.” So to celebrate Father’s Day here at chiefmartec.com, I proudly offer up seven impromptu and — oof — truly terrible martech dad jokes…   What’s the best place on earth for marketing technology? Mmm, Arctic Circle....

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Martech is meaningless without our humanity

I’ve had a hard time writing about martech these past couple of weeks. So I’m just going to write what I want to say, what I need to say. The terrible injustice of the killing of George Floyd was appalling and ugly. The fact that he was one of many victims of such violence and racism — even in just the past month — is all the more gut-wrenching. On...

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Proof of platform: SaaS companies have a median of 15 integrations each — app platforms have 500+

As Forrest Gump might say, “Platform is as platform does.” Pandium, a fascinating kind of app-marketplace-as-a-service company, released a State of Product Integrations at the SaaS 1000 report this week. They examined integrations, public APIs, and “app centers” offered by the 1,000 fastest growing SaaS companies from 2019. Their analysis provides...

May 2020

How platform dynamics explain The Second Golden Age of Martech

About a year and a half ago, I wrote about 3 Trends Driving the Second Golden Age of Martech: Ecosystems, Experts, and (Citizen) Engineers. These are the big themes that I believe will shape the next decade of marketing technology: Ecosystems — instead of marketing cloud suites vs. best-of-breed point solutions, we will have the best of both: open...

May 2020

Reflections on agile marketing by leading practitioners and analysts

The following is a guest post curated by Andrea Fryrear of AgileSherpas, sharing reflections from leading agile marketing practitioners and analysts on the findings from her latest State of Agile Marketing report. As we learned in the 3rd Annual State of Agile Marketing Report, there are lots of different manifestations of marketing agility. Most marketers...

May 2020

Platform dynamics driving martech app expansion and consolidation explained in one (relatively) simple model

Last month, I published the latest marketing technology landscape. It grew yet again, defying many a pundit’s prior prediction, swelling to 8,000 martech solutions. Upon its release, two things immediately happened: A bunch of people insisted it would consolidate dramatically. A bunch of companies emailed me to complain they weren’t included. The...

May 2020

Forget the Martech 5000. Try the Martech 500 Million.

Okay, there aren’t really going to be 500 million martech apps by 2023. And if there were, we certainly wouldn’t attempt to map them in a martech landscape. (Crikey, that’s a nightmare that will haunt me in the dark of night.) But according to IDC in their IT Industry 2020 Predictions, “over 500 million digital apps and services will be developed...

May 2020

7 amazing marketing stacks from Cisco, Infutor, Juniper Networks, Philips, Poly, Sargento, and USPS

Spring is one of my favorite times of year in the martech industry. We release the latest marketing technology landscape. We share the latest data on martech careers and job responsibilities. We — in normal times — run the MarTech Conference in the Bay Area. And at that conference, we announce the winners of The Stackies: Marketing Stack Awards and...

Apr 2020