Two new reports: The good news is marketers will spend more on martech

From Conductor’s report, “Marketing Executives Reveal Their 2017 Marketing Strategy”

Two recent reports on marketing technology paint a similar picture:

Spending is up, but so is confusion.

Conductor’s new study on marketing executives’ relationship with technology, “Marketing Executives Reveal Their 2017 Marketing Strategy,” found that 70 percent will spend more on martech next year than this year. This is the content intelligence platform’s first report on the topic.

Similarly, a report from customer journey platform Kitewheel — “The State of MarTech and AdTech: Customer Journey Investments in 2017”– said that 81 percent of ad/marketing agencies plan to buy ad/marketing tech next year. Eighty-two percent selected between one and five new technologies this year, encouraged to do so by senior team members. Almost a third are using more than 10 marketing technologies.

From Conductor’s report, “Marketing Executives Reveal Their 2017 Marketing Strategy,”

But here’s the rub:

Conductor discovered that more than half (53 percent) of respondents are already overwhelmed with the data they’re getting. Sixty-seven percent think they have to look at too many dashboards.

And the Kitewheel study, its third in a series about the Customer Journey, found that only six percent of the respondents use their tools weekly, in part because two-thirds say they don’t have the skills to use them.

“I can’t say that I’m surprised with the findings,” Conductor CMO Avi Goldwerger told me via email about her company’s report. “As a marketer, I feel the same way.”

“If anything, I’m surprised that so many executives admit to being overwhelmed,” she said.

From Kitewheel’s report, “The State of MarTech and AdTech: Customer Journey Investments in 2017”

Goldwerger suggested that tech vendors can “make it easier for marketers to identify the insights,” as her company has tried to do with its recently launched Insight Stream newsfeed.

Kitewheel president Mark Smith told me the big takeaway in his company’s report is that “agencies will be looking to bolster their omnichannel marketing capabilities through technology investments, even though their existing tools suffer from underutilization.”

He predicted that, since only six percent of the respondents are using the tools weekly, agencies may “seek to cut down on solutions with very narrow use cases in favor of more comprehensive platforms.”

Or, as Kitewheel says on its site’s home page to make its case that brands should deliver unified experiences across channels through its platform:

“… you need to stop buying new marketing tools and start flexing the ones you have.”

About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.