MarTech :
Marketing Transformation – The MarTech Effect
By: Lisa Horwich @ Pallas Research
In the last installment of Marketing Transformation – The MarTech Effect, we explored the background (Chapter 1) of why companies are investing heavily into marketing technology solutions. In this month’s chapter, we now delve a bit deeper into some of the technologies and how they are being used and bringing about a transformation of how we do marketing.
With a plethora of solutions out there, Gartner has indicated the following technologies will gain the most attention from marketers:
Mobile Marketing Analytics (MMA)
With at least two-thirds of the US population owning a smartphone, and those who do own one keep it within arm’s reach 24 hours a day, it’s no wonder that companies want to capitalize on this by optimizing the mobile experience for customers.
Marketers are using MMA to track, measure and understand how mobile users are interacting with mobile sites and apps. Companies will offer coupons, special deals and offers specifically geared to their mobile app customers. They make it easy for customers to reorder favorite products allowing companies to grow mobile user engagement and retention.
Cross-Device Identification & Multitouch Attribution
Companies are running multiple campaigns on different channels (social media, email, search engine ads, etc.) and on a variety of devices (phone, laptop/desktop, TV) and are trying to measure the ROI of these campaigns.
In the ‘old days’ marketers would attribute the sale conversion to the most recent touchpoint – i.e. the last click. Nowadays, with multiple opportunities to reach the customer, they cannot simply attribute the sale to this single touchpoint. And, in order to allocate future spending on the different channels, companies must look at each channel and device to create a budget that allocates advertising and promotional money in direct proportion to customer interaction. It’s definitely not a perfect formula, but it’s much better than relying on the marketer’s gut instinct.
Customer Data Platforms (CDP)
CDP’s collect and unify data from multiple sources into a single profile from which the company can then profile their customers and create/manage segments. In the past, performing a robust customer segmentation required time and budget to run large quantitative studies from which profiles could be derived.
Think of a CDP as marrying the transactional data a company has on your past purchasing history combined with your LinkedIn, Facebook and other readily available 3rd party data. As one CDP vendor so aptly put it “CRM is to Sales as CDP is to Marketing.” Companies can then use a CDP to power insights, personalized campaigns through marketing automation as well as general profiling.
Next month we will look at how Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Business Intelligence and Real-Time Analytics are impacting marketing in the modern world.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lisa specializes in sophisticated, strategic market research and competitive intelligence. With over 15 years of marketing experience, including communications/brand management and product marketing, Lisa uncovers the ‘why’ behind data helping companies get the information they need to make smart decisions. Lisa specializes in business-to-business research helping companies understand their customers’ point of view through data analysis, focus groups and in-depth interviews.
