The document summarizes the findings of a survey of over 450 marketing and IT professionals in Australia and New Zealand. It found that collaboration between marketing and IT is improving, with around half describing their relationship as collaborative or awesome. Both functions cited improving the customer experience as a top priority. Integration of marketing technology platforms remains a major challenge, with over 80% having integrated 0-50% of their systems. Marketing continues to invest heavily in technologies like CRM and marketing automation, but over half struggle to understand marketing automation. Budget constraints were cited as the biggest obstacle by almost half of respondents. Communication and collaboration between marketing and IT was highlighted as important for overcoming challenges.

1. The State of ANZ Marketing
Technology 2016
A report on ANZ marketing and technology professionals’
goals, roadblocks and vision for 2016 and beyond

2. Introduction
The MarTech (marketing technology) landscape continues to evolve
at a lightning-fast pace, providing marketers and IT professionals
with more opportunity to connect and engage with a growing digital
citizenry.
To better understand how marketing and IT professionals are
currently navigating this unpredictable realm, we surveyed 645 of
these individuals globally, with 453 of those in Australia and
New Zealand, to uncover their goals, challenges and vision for the
future of digital.
This report harnesses data only from the ANZ region, to bring you
the most relevant trends in your region.
Read on to find out how local Marketing and IT professionals feel
about everything from budgets and brand to resources and ROI.

3. 227
ANZ Marketers
226
ANZ IT Professionals
52%
Snapshot of ANZ respondents
453ANZ Respondents
52% of ANZ respondents had a
seniority of Marketing/IT
Manager and above

4. Marketing/IT collaboration
improving in 2016
Everyone has heard about the supposed animosity between
Marketing and IT - Marketing wants everything and they want it
now; IT wants security, integration and flexibility. It’s hard to get
those goals to align and teams to see eye to eye.
Last year, the vast majority of SOMT respondents weren’t
speaking very highly of their Marketing or IT colleagues with 51%
indicating that their relationship necessitated ‘room for
improvement.’
One year on and this state of affairs has shifted as 46%
marketers and 55% of IT professionals of respondents
identified their Marketing/IT relationship as either
‘collaborative’ or ‘awesome.’
46%
of Marketers described
their relationship with IT as
either ‘awesome’ or
‘collaborative’
55%
of IT described their
relationship with Marketing
as either ‘awesome’ or
‘collaborative’
“We both understand our different perspectives and
acknowledge we are trying to achieve the same goals” - IT
IT respondents
Marketing respondents

5. CX leads digital goals of
both Marketing & IT
Looking at the charts to the right, you’d be forgiven for thinking
we had the labels switched around. IT’s major goal is
‘improving the 360 degree customer experience, while the
majority of marketers chose ‘integrating all platforms and
channels’ as their major focus.
IT’s traditionally tech-focused role has now shifted gears to focus
on the customer experience (a remit that has until now been the
preserve of the marketing team). We predict this trend will
continue as customer satisfaction puts more pressure on the
organisation as a whole.
Marketing’s goals are more evenly split, but it’s clear that
integration of their tech platforms is both a sore spot and an
opportunity. Tech platforms are currently splintered and silo-ed,
with CMS, CRM, Marketing Automation and Search often failing
to sync or even talk to one another at all. We expect integration
to be at the forefront of marketers’ goals for at least the next few
years.
2%
3%
8%
15%
18%
26%
28%
7%
7%
8%
18% 60%
Improving the 360 degree customer experience
Integrating all platforms and channels
Other
Increasing security on existing platforms
Improving performance / speed
IT respondents Marketing respondents
Q: What’s your most important digital goal for 2016?
Integrating all platforms and channels
Improving the 360 degree customer experience
Lead generation / driving sales
Raising brand awareness
Demonstrating ROI
Improving metrics
Other

6. Integration of MarTech
platforms is a key challenge
‘Integration’ - the word alone strikes fear into the heart of many IT
and marketing professionals. It’s the ultimate goal, but it’s
complex and difficult to achieve.
Much of the complexity is due to Marketers’ tendency to acquire
the latest and greatest technologies, sometimes with little
thought to how it will all sync up with existing systems (we’re all
guilty of it!). It can often then be left up to IT to figure out how to
jam a square peg into a round hole - leaving frustrated parties on
both sides.
Our research suggests that the holy grail of integration is
still a long, long way off, with over 80% of respondents
falling in the 0% - 50% integrated category.
2016 will be a transformational year for this group, as they begin
to lay the foundations that get their systems truly synced.
3%
10%
32%
38%
17%
100% - Our systems are totally integrated
75% - We’re getting there
50% - We’ve got the basics done
25% - Our systems are starting to sync up
0% - We haven’t even started yet
3%
Q:Howwell-integratedareallofyourmarketingtechnologyplatforms?

7. 0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
7
46
60
14
41
25
40
27
38
Despite both marketing and IT having a vested interest in the
implementation of a successful MarTech solution, 60% of people
across the board identified Marketing Managers as the key
stakeholders when purchasing new marketing software.
This was remarkable, considering almost two thirds (64%) of
respondents indicated that purchases for this technology should
be equally drawn from both marketing & IT’s budget.
This could be seen as a reflection of Millennials’ ascent into the role
of mid-to-senior manager in the marketing function - their tech
savviness as well as position at the coal face of marketing
campaigns makes them well-placed to make the big decisions when
it comes to investing in new platforms.
Marketing Managers
call the shotsQ: Who is the key stakeholder when purchasing a new
marketing technology platform?
CM
O
CFO
CEO
CTO
CIO
SalesM
anager
M
arketing
M
anagerIT
M
anager
Other

8. Marketing continues to invest
heavily in technology
Investment in marketing automation software
increased by 70% from 2015 to 2016.
This year, around 25% of marketers again failed to report they’re
utilising some sort of CMS (we hope this doesn’t mean they’re
hard-coding!), which we can only assume boils down to a
knowledge gap in relation to marketing technology systems.
On the upside, we’re witnessing an unprecedented trend towards
investment in CRM and marketing automation technology, with
these platforms enjoying a huge 26% and 70% usage increase
this year respectively.
It’s clear that marketers are warming up to the benefits of a true
CX platform that integrates CRM with marketing automation to
deliver a truly great customer experience.
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
CMS
CRM
MarketingAutomation
Search
Analytics
Ecommerce
19
70
50
21
57
74
19
78
51
13
45
77
2015
2016
Q: What marketing technology platforms are you currently using?

9. Despite a mammoth uptake this year in the purchase of marketing
automation technology, 52% of marketers still struggle to get their head
around how it works.
It’s no secret that churn rate for marketing automation products can be
high, despite being widely available, easily accessible and crucial
technology for marketers.
The main issue is that while marketers are quick to ensure the ‘latest and
greatest’ technologies are at their disposal, little thought is put towards
how said technologies will need to be maintained post-purchase. As
continual knowledge of how best to manage the tool is not often planned
for, this is leading to confusion, misunderstanding and a poor ROI.
Marketing automation
still mystifies
More than half of marketers surveyed struggle to
understand marketing automation, closely trailed
by customer experience.
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
46
32
35
52
41
29
38
Q: What area of the digital spectrum do you feel you could
understand better?
SEO
SEM
Contentm
arketing
M
arketing
autom
ationLead
nurturingSocialm
edia
Custom
erexperience
Marketing

10. Our 2016 results show that digital confidence is becoming less
polarised, as people are moving away from ‘we don’t have a digital
strategy’ or ‘visionary strategy’ and into the middle of the field.
We’ve seen a 30% drop in organisations that don’t have a
digital strategy, paired with a 23% increase in people
describing their digital strategy as ‘adequate’.
Being a ‘visionary’ is becoming harder and harder for both
marketers and IT professionals alike, as the quality of digital strategy
and execution across the world just keeps improving.
Digital strategy described as ‘visionary’
decreases by 25%, as digital becomes the new norm.
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Wedon'thaveone
Inadequate
Adequate
Visionary
15
53
24
7
20
43
26
10
2015
2016
Q: How would you describe your organisation’s digital strategy?
Strategy in a digital world;
not ‘digital strategy’
“It would be foolish to ever call ourselves visionaries because
our world is forever-changing. We may be visionaries now, but
in a month or so our knowledge needs to improve and adapt
to constant change.” - Marketing

11. Budget remains a major
challenge for all
Budgets, buy-in and remaining agile present biggest
challenges for both marketing and IT.
Every year, departments across the board are asked to do more
with less, and it seems that Marketing and IT are feeling this
pressure, with almost half of all respondents naming budget
as their biggest obstacle.
Both teams were aligned on almost all obstacles, with the
exception of ‘knowing the customer,’ where there is a large
discrepancy between IT and Marketing. This is most likely due to
the shift in focus from purely systems to customer experience for
IT departments around ANZ.
As IT teams come to grips with their newfound responsibility to
the customer, we’ll see this number decrease due to CX-focused
training and education programs sweeping organisations top to
bottom.
0%
7%
13%
20%
27%
33%
40%
47%
53%
60%
Budget
Stakeholderbuy-in
Remainingagile
Knowingthecustomer
Findingtherighttalent
Gainingactionabledata
IT/Marketingcollaboration
17
15
18
25
27
32
50
1415
19
13
30
36
48
Marketing
IT
Q: What are your greatest obstacles when it comes to achieving
your goals?

12. Communication is key
We asked all our respondents to tell us what Marketing
or IT could do to make their lives easier. Here’s how
they answered.
“Engage with the business before defining the IT technology
roadmap. How can the IT technology development roadmap be
defined without the context of how the business wishes to use
it?” - Marketing
“Accept that we live in a complex technological world. Have a
better understanding of the technology required to fulfil their
objectives.” - IT
“See customer experience as a cross functional activity rather
than the responsibility of marketing alone”
- Marketing
“Come to us and ask for our advice in resolving issues and
scoping out resolutions, not bring us solutions to implement
that will break other components within the organisation.” - IT
“Share our vision more. User experience always seems to fall
second to technology fitting into the existing technological
landscape. Realise that technology is here to serve the customer,
not for it’s own sake and have the customer at the centre of all
decisions” - Marketing

13. Without technology, there can be no marketing
Marketers are catching up to the incredible pace of
technology, but there’s still a ways to go. Our stats on the
current ecosystems currently used by marketers are
frightening: less than a quarter have a marketing automation
platform in place, while just over half are using a CRM. It’s time
for marketers to acknowledge and embrace the opportunities
that technologies such as these present; increased
conversions, enhanced experiences and better knowledge of
the customer.
Integrate or die
Delivering a great CX is now at the forefront of most
organisations’ goals. In an ideal world, someone in customer
service, sales and accounts would be able to see the full view
of the customer: where they interact with your brand, how
they do it and how to serve them better.
You can’t know this if your systems aren’t synced up to provide
a full, 360 degree view of the customer. It’s time to get
integrating, people.
It’s time to work together
Our research shows that the customer experience is top of
mind for IT professionals, which goes to show that Marketing
and IT are more aligned than ever before. It’s time for these
two vital business functions to come together and work hand
in hand, collaborating on strategy and execution as one
cohesive team.
So what does it all mean?

14. ADELAIDE AUCKLAND BRISBANE CANBERRA EDINBURGH HOBART LONDON MELBOURNE NEW YORK PERTH SYDNEY SZCZECIN WELLINGTON
About Squiz
Squiz is an Australian-owned and headquartered
company of 450 people that helps you to
transform your digital experience.
We help our customers to identify their digital objectives, then
give the tools and services to get them there (and then some).
With CMS, CRM, Search and Marketing Automation, we provide
a platform that helps you engage with your customers digitally.
We also deliver consulting, strategy, UX, design, hosting,
training and 24/7 support to hep you reach your goals.
squiz.net