This document discusses the rise of marketing technologists and the need for marketing to take control of technology decisions. It argues that the Chief Marketing Officer should appoint a Chief Marketing Technologist to oversee marketing technology functions. This new role would coordinate with IT and product teams, have both technology and marketing expertise, and help integrate technology into marketing strategies and operations. The Chief Marketing Technologist would ensure marketing wields technology as a strategic capability to improve customer experiences, organizational efficiency, and competitive positioning.
Pitching a solo session for SXSW 2016 on the topic of "hacking marketing" — great management ideas that marketers can borrow from the software development community to better thrive in a digital world.
An effective MarTech stack can help you execute, evaluate and expand marketing efforts across the entire customer lifecycle. Listen in to this webinar to how to optimize your MarTech stack.
Marketing has more software available to it today than any other business function in the history of computing. For marketers, this is a two-edged sword: an incredible array of capabilities — but a dizzying set of choices. In this session, we'll cover the marketing technology landscape, its underlying structure, and how to acquire a framework for managing your own cohesive marketing technology strategy.
This presentation was given by Scott Brinker, ion interactive's Founder & CTO, at NEDMA's 2014 Marketing Technology Summit.
Slides from my presentation at Global Trade Day 2016, Bryant College on May 25, 2016. Explored mobile, social, and agile marketing. The panel included speakers: Andy Kling from HavasEdge, Gillie Nevel from CVS, Scott Stroud from Hasbro, Richard Delahaye of Barracuda and Rob Corbin of EMC.
From the MarTech Conference in San Francisco, California, March 31-April 1, 2015. SESSION: The Martech Blueprint Imperative. PRESENTATION: The Martech Blueprint Imperative - Given by Cynthia Gumbert, @Cyngumbert - CA Technologies, VP of Digital & New Accounts Marketing
How To Align Marketing Technology With Business Strategy By David RaabMarTech Conference
From the MarTech Conference in Boston, Massachusetts, August 19-20, 2014. SESSION: How to Align Marketing Technology with Business Strategy - Given by David Raab, @draab - Principal, Raab & Associates. #MARTECH
Pitching a solo session for SXSW 2016 on the topic of "hacking marketing" — great management ideas that marketers can borrow from the software development community to better thrive in a digital world.
An effective MarTech stack can help you execute, evaluate and expand marketing efforts across the entire customer lifecycle. Listen in to this webinar to how to optimize your MarTech stack.
Marketing has more software available to it today than any other business function in the history of computing. For marketers, this is a two-edged sword: an incredible array of capabilities — but a dizzying set of choices. In this session, we'll cover the marketing technology landscape, its underlying structure, and how to acquire a framework for managing your own cohesive marketing technology strategy.
This presentation was given by Scott Brinker, ion interactive's Founder & CTO, at NEDMA's 2014 Marketing Technology Summit.
Slides from my presentation at Global Trade Day 2016, Bryant College on May 25, 2016. Explored mobile, social, and agile marketing. The panel included speakers: Andy Kling from HavasEdge, Gillie Nevel from CVS, Scott Stroud from Hasbro, Richard Delahaye of Barracuda and Rob Corbin of EMC.
From the MarTech Conference in San Francisco, California, March 31-April 1, 2015. SESSION: The Martech Blueprint Imperative. PRESENTATION: The Martech Blueprint Imperative - Given by Cynthia Gumbert, @Cyngumbert - CA Technologies, VP of Digital & New Accounts Marketing
How To Align Marketing Technology With Business Strategy By David RaabMarTech Conference
From the MarTech Conference in Boston, Massachusetts, August 19-20, 2014. SESSION: How to Align Marketing Technology with Business Strategy - Given by David Raab, @draab - Principal, Raab & Associates. #MARTECH
From the MarTech Conference in San Francisco, California, March 31-April 1, 2015. SESSION: Building A Marketing Technology Organization From The Ground Up. PRESENTATION: How AETNA Built A Marketing Technology Focused Office - Given by Joseph Kurian - Aetna, Head of Marketing Technology & Innovation
Strategies And Technologies To Build And Measure Business Success By Paul Roe...MarTech Conference
From the MarTech Conference in Boston, Massachusetts, August 19-20, 2014. SESSION: The Marketing Performance Blueprint PRESENTATION: Strategies And Technologies To Build And Measure Business Success Given By Paul Roetzer, @PaulRoetzer - CEO, PR20/20. #MARTECH
Scott Brinker - Democratizing Martech - The Rise of Citizen Developers & Data...Boye & Co
In the past marketers had to go through IT for the marketing tools they need. Today marketing technology is widespread, easy to adopt and use. It’s been taken out of the hands of IT, and placed into the hands of practically everyone in the organization.
This keynote explores the possibilities and challenges that new MarTech - with the introduction of artificial intelligence - is giving marketers.
From the MarTech Conference in San Francisco, California, March 31-April 1, 2015. SESSION: It'S A Martech, Martech, Martech, Martech World. PRESENTATION: How The Marketing Technology Landscape is Blooming - Given by Scott Brinker, @chiefmartec - Ion Interactive, Conference Chair & Author
Rebranding Agile: How Marketers are Changing the Way they Work for Real-time ...Frank Days
My deck from Oredev 2013 in Malmo Sweden. I presented the state of Agile in marketing. Is it Agile Marketing or Agile in Marketing? This is the question.
Accelerating the Value of Data Management Platforms with Tag Management SystemsEnsighten
James Niehaus, VP of Analytics and Digital Strategy, Ensighten
Gartner calls the data management platform (DMP) the “soul of modern marketing,” but many marketers have yet to decipher the alphabet soup that feeds into today’s marketing technology stack. Find out the key differences between DMPs and tag management systems (TMS) and how first-party data from a brand’s website, combined with other sources of online and offline data, is foundational for enhancing audiences generated by the DMP. Dive into how DMPs and tag management systems actually work in a symbiotic relationship that can produce more value on both sides, including faster DMP roll-out, better audiences and improved data ownership.
A strategic framework for evaluating Marketing Technology and building your MarTech Stack. Includes an overview of popular technology for marketing and advertising including DMP, CRM, Attribution, Email Service Providers, Social Media Platforms, Analytics platforms and others
How to Effectively Build a Martech Stack & Integrate Your Marketing ToolsPinpointe On-Demand
Is your organization falling short when it goes to effectively managing and integrating new tools into your marketing technology stack?
Marketing technology can offer many benefits, but the real value is uncovered when it’s integrated with the other tools and processes that enable you to run your business better. Yet, for many, this can be a daunting and overwhelming task.
This slide deck from Pinpointe and Effin Amazing’s CEO, Dan McGaw for shows you how to create and document a marketing stack that easily integrates with your website, products and business tools so you can effortlessly scale your business, be more resilient, increase productivity, and create more revenue.
What you’ll learn:
- What the integration process for different tools looks like and how you should set up integrations for faster data transfer and less redundancy
- What tag management is and why how it controls and manages your customer data
- Whether or not you should be using a customer data platform for integration
- How to build a taxonomy and schema sheet
- The proper way to name the actions your users take
- How to store important demographic, technographic, and firmographic data
- How to maintain data governance in your marketing stack
If you are looking to build the operation’s foundation for long-term growth through an optimized martech strategy, view these slides and the accompanying webinar.
View webinar at http://email-marketing.pinpointe.com/webinar-how-to-build-martech-stack-mcgaw
The Art & Science of Modern Marketing: Three Key Best Practices for the JourneyFred Isbell
Digital transformation, widespread innovation and Marketing Technology (MarTec) have fundamentally transformed marketing. The modern marketer must combine art and science to meet the evolving needs of the services marketplace, including thought leadership and storytelling, insights-driven marketing and analytics and innovative digital events and Webinars. We’ll address new requirements, the skills of a successful modern marketer and define key best practices and present real-world examples and experiences in key areas of modern marketing
The Fearless Marketer: A Practical Approach to Creating Great ExperiencesMarketo
As a marketer, how do you push boundaries and formulate exceptional experiences for your audience? Watch Gurdeep Dhillon, Head of Global Demand Generation at Marketo, an Adobe Company for his webinar, The Fearless Marketer: A Practical Approach to Creating Great Experiences, as he shared his thoughts and experiences around pushing the limits and being a truly fearless marketer.
You'll learn about:
Experience driven marketing
Failing fast
Marketo's own challenges and successes
Highlights from Widen’s 2019 Martech Survey: Widen your perspective of your ...Widen, an Acquia company
In this presentation, we’ll share exclusive highlights from Widen’s 2019 martech survey. You'll learn what martech investments and integrations are trending most among Widen customers and stay on top of the hottest martech trends.
With the advent of digital marketing, a growing number of marketing software is released. This is what we call MarTech for Marketing Technologies. But there is a problem...
Read the related article (French) here: http://www.afelio.be/fr/news/le-probleme-avec-les-martech
AMA/Aquent: The Rise of the Marketing TechnologistAquent
Marketing has become a technology-powered discipline. Though not everyone needs to become a technologist, technical professionals now have key roles to play in the marketing team.
In this webcast, you will learn why marketing teams need technologists outside of IT, who they are, and where to find them.
Navigating the Marketing Technology RapidsScott Brinker
A whirlwind tour of the marketing technology landscape, with a discussion of its rapid growth over the past 5 years -- and how it may evolve in the years ahead. A look at why marketing technology is so important to marketing today and how marketing teams can develop marketing technology management capabilities within their organizations.
From the MarTech Conference in San Francisco, California, March 31-April 1, 2015. SESSION: Building A Marketing Technology Organization From The Ground Up. PRESENTATION: How AETNA Built A Marketing Technology Focused Office - Given by Joseph Kurian - Aetna, Head of Marketing Technology & Innovation
Strategies And Technologies To Build And Measure Business Success By Paul Roe...MarTech Conference
From the MarTech Conference in Boston, Massachusetts, August 19-20, 2014. SESSION: The Marketing Performance Blueprint PRESENTATION: Strategies And Technologies To Build And Measure Business Success Given By Paul Roetzer, @PaulRoetzer - CEO, PR20/20. #MARTECH
Scott Brinker - Democratizing Martech - The Rise of Citizen Developers & Data...Boye & Co
In the past marketers had to go through IT for the marketing tools they need. Today marketing technology is widespread, easy to adopt and use. It’s been taken out of the hands of IT, and placed into the hands of practically everyone in the organization.
This keynote explores the possibilities and challenges that new MarTech - with the introduction of artificial intelligence - is giving marketers.
From the MarTech Conference in San Francisco, California, March 31-April 1, 2015. SESSION: It'S A Martech, Martech, Martech, Martech World. PRESENTATION: How The Marketing Technology Landscape is Blooming - Given by Scott Brinker, @chiefmartec - Ion Interactive, Conference Chair & Author
Rebranding Agile: How Marketers are Changing the Way they Work for Real-time ...Frank Days
My deck from Oredev 2013 in Malmo Sweden. I presented the state of Agile in marketing. Is it Agile Marketing or Agile in Marketing? This is the question.
Accelerating the Value of Data Management Platforms with Tag Management SystemsEnsighten
James Niehaus, VP of Analytics and Digital Strategy, Ensighten
Gartner calls the data management platform (DMP) the “soul of modern marketing,” but many marketers have yet to decipher the alphabet soup that feeds into today’s marketing technology stack. Find out the key differences between DMPs and tag management systems (TMS) and how first-party data from a brand’s website, combined with other sources of online and offline data, is foundational for enhancing audiences generated by the DMP. Dive into how DMPs and tag management systems actually work in a symbiotic relationship that can produce more value on both sides, including faster DMP roll-out, better audiences and improved data ownership.
A strategic framework for evaluating Marketing Technology and building your MarTech Stack. Includes an overview of popular technology for marketing and advertising including DMP, CRM, Attribution, Email Service Providers, Social Media Platforms, Analytics platforms and others
How to Effectively Build a Martech Stack & Integrate Your Marketing ToolsPinpointe On-Demand
Is your organization falling short when it goes to effectively managing and integrating new tools into your marketing technology stack?
Marketing technology can offer many benefits, but the real value is uncovered when it’s integrated with the other tools and processes that enable you to run your business better. Yet, for many, this can be a daunting and overwhelming task.
This slide deck from Pinpointe and Effin Amazing’s CEO, Dan McGaw for shows you how to create and document a marketing stack that easily integrates with your website, products and business tools so you can effortlessly scale your business, be more resilient, increase productivity, and create more revenue.
What you’ll learn:
- What the integration process for different tools looks like and how you should set up integrations for faster data transfer and less redundancy
- What tag management is and why how it controls and manages your customer data
- Whether or not you should be using a customer data platform for integration
- How to build a taxonomy and schema sheet
- The proper way to name the actions your users take
- How to store important demographic, technographic, and firmographic data
- How to maintain data governance in your marketing stack
If you are looking to build the operation’s foundation for long-term growth through an optimized martech strategy, view these slides and the accompanying webinar.
View webinar at http://email-marketing.pinpointe.com/webinar-how-to-build-martech-stack-mcgaw
The Art & Science of Modern Marketing: Three Key Best Practices for the JourneyFred Isbell
Digital transformation, widespread innovation and Marketing Technology (MarTec) have fundamentally transformed marketing. The modern marketer must combine art and science to meet the evolving needs of the services marketplace, including thought leadership and storytelling, insights-driven marketing and analytics and innovative digital events and Webinars. We’ll address new requirements, the skills of a successful modern marketer and define key best practices and present real-world examples and experiences in key areas of modern marketing
The Fearless Marketer: A Practical Approach to Creating Great ExperiencesMarketo
As a marketer, how do you push boundaries and formulate exceptional experiences for your audience? Watch Gurdeep Dhillon, Head of Global Demand Generation at Marketo, an Adobe Company for his webinar, The Fearless Marketer: A Practical Approach to Creating Great Experiences, as he shared his thoughts and experiences around pushing the limits and being a truly fearless marketer.
You'll learn about:
Experience driven marketing
Failing fast
Marketo's own challenges and successes
Highlights from Widen’s 2019 Martech Survey: Widen your perspective of your ...Widen, an Acquia company
In this presentation, we’ll share exclusive highlights from Widen’s 2019 martech survey. You'll learn what martech investments and integrations are trending most among Widen customers and stay on top of the hottest martech trends.
With the advent of digital marketing, a growing number of marketing software is released. This is what we call MarTech for Marketing Technologies. But there is a problem...
Read the related article (French) here: http://www.afelio.be/fr/news/le-probleme-avec-les-martech
AMA/Aquent: The Rise of the Marketing TechnologistAquent
Marketing has become a technology-powered discipline. Though not everyone needs to become a technologist, technical professionals now have key roles to play in the marketing team.
In this webcast, you will learn why marketing teams need technologists outside of IT, who they are, and where to find them.
Navigating the Marketing Technology RapidsScott Brinker
A whirlwind tour of the marketing technology landscape, with a discussion of its rapid growth over the past 5 years -- and how it may evolve in the years ahead. A look at why marketing technology is so important to marketing today and how marketing teams can develop marketing technology management capabilities within their organizations.
RISE OF THE MARKETING TECHNOLOGIST [INBOUND 2014]HubSpot
As marketing becomes a technology-powered discipline, marketing teams are adding more technical talent to their ranks. Hybrid "marketing technologists" -- people who combine technical depth with a passion for marketing -- make marketing a more sophisticated user of software for automation, interactive customer experiences, and data-driven decision-making. Here we'll examine the role of a "chief marketing technologist" as the CMO's right-hand for marketing technology strategy and management.
Navigating the multi-channel and marketing technology landscape is an ongoing challenge. This presentation provides a unique perspective for considering the issues and navigating the market.
IPA Creative Pioneers Conference - 2nd May 2012Code Worldwide
A "provocateur" pitch given to Adland at their annual conference. Great that they're talking about Creative Tech, but still a long way to go to realise it's potential. And hurry, or others will get there first...
Digital transformation challenges and the marketing audit imperativeSilvia Rak
The digital transformation poses a unique opportunity for marketers: this process that puts a question mark on business models and erases whole industries offers a chance to take the marketing discipline to a more strategic level. Because at top level everything is under scrutiny, it is a springboard for everyone who would like to escape the “we’ve always done it this way” trap. But my prediction is: only few will make it.
Digital marketing is the art and science of promoting products or services using digital channels to reach and engage with potential customers. It encompasses a wide range of online tactics and strategies aimed at increasing brand visibility, driving website traffic, generating leads, and ultimately, converting those leads into customers.
https://nidmindia.com/
Technology has come to play a crucial role in delivering marketing programs and helping with meeting your marketing objectives. In a space filled with over a 1,000 marketing tech companies providing all kinds of products, platforms & services how do you decide which tools and platforms to invest in?
We polled and received responses from 260 B2B marketers in the United States and internationally. The special report that follows gives you a snapshot of how B2B marketers such as yourself are placing their bets on technology.
Ektron Synergy 2014 - Thriving at the Intersection of Marketing & ITEktron
Marketing is being reinvented as a technology-powered discipline. From new, brand-defining
customer experiences to more efficient marketing operations, software is changing
what's possible. It's also changing the structure and culture of organizations
who embrace these possibilities. We'll take a whirlwind tour of the forces
driving this convergence and the ways in which companies and individuals can
thrive in it. Presented by Scott Brinker Scott Brinker, Co-founder & CTO, ion interactive
Today, AdTech has made it possible for advertisers to figure out the target audience more accurately and deliver ads to the most relevant audience at the right place and time.
In today's fast-paced business world, a robust online presence is no longer optional - it's a necessity. Digital marketing has become the cornerstone of brand promotion, lead generation, and customer engagement. In this article, we will explore the dynamic realm of digital marketing, understanding its various facets, challenges, and future trends.
Types of Digital Marketing
Digital marketing encompasses a wide array of strategies and channels. Understanding the different types and their applications is crucial for any business.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO involves optimizing your website to rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). This organic traffic is highly valuable and cost-effective.
Content Marketing
Content is king in the digital realm. Crafting engaging, informative content not only attracts audiences but also establishes your brand as an authority.
Social Media Marketing
Social media platforms are powerful tools for connecting with your target audience. Choosing the right platforms and engaging content is key.
Email Marketing
Email marketing remains a potent way to nurture leads and maintain customer relationships. Crafting compelling email campaigns is an art worth mastering.
The Digital Marketing Funnel
Understanding the digital marketing funnel is essential. It consists of several stages, including awareness, consideration, and conversion. Each stage requires a tailored approach to guide potential customers down the funnel.
Measuring Digital Marketing Success
Key performance indicators (KPIs) help you gauge the effectiveness of your digital marketing efforts. Tools like Google Analytics provide valuable insights into user behavior.
Challenges in Digital Marketing
While digital marketing offers immense opportunities, it also presents challenges.
Competition
The digital landscape is crowded. Standing out requires creative and data-driven strategies.
Adapting to Algorithm Changes
Search engine and social media algorithms change frequently. Staying updated is crucial.
Data Privacy and Security
With increasing concerns about data privacy, businesses must handle customer data responsibly.
Future Trends in Digital Marketing
The digital marketing landscape is continually evolving. Keeping an eye on emerging trends and technologies can give you a competitive edge.
AI and Automation
Artificial intelligence and automation are revolutionizing digital marketing by streamlining tasks and personalizing user experiences.
Video Marketing
Video content is gaining prominence. Short videos, live streams, and interactive content are driving engagement.
Voice Search Optimization
As voice-activated devices become more common, optimizing for voice search is vital.
Conclusion
In the digital age, digital marketing is not just an option; it's a requirement for business success.
Digital Marketing Features in Information Technology.pdfDigital Vishnu
In today's digital age, marketing has undergone a significant transformation, and digital marketing has become an indispensable tool for businesses to reach and engage with their target audience. The field of information technology plays a crucial role in enabling and driving digital marketing strategies.
A forecast of what's shaping the digital era with insight from marketing executives. Interested in learning more? Check out our website at www.Mondo.com.
eMarketer Webinar: Marketing Technology—Nine Important Trends for Brands and ...eMarketer
Technologies to create, manage and measure marketing and advertising have become essential tools to reach and engage increasingly connected audiences. Topics in this webinar include: Why marketing technology is becoming a strategic core competency for brands; How marketers are becoming smarter at buying technology; Why the idea of the marketing cloud is so attractive; How marketers are working with IT to deal with data and security issues.
Getting Marketing and Technology to Play Nice in the SandboxReid Carr
Tips for how Marketing and Technology groups can work better to expedite their organization's digital transformation initiatives. And, making the case for a MarTech role in the organization. Delivered at INTERFACE 2017 in San Diego, CA.
10. Technology you create: • Web apps • Facebook apps • iPhone apps • Android apps • Interactive ads • Semantic web • Your products…
11. The Extended Web Dynamic ads Mobile apps Social media sites Landing pages Microsites Web site
12. Social media monitoring Digital asset management Competitive intelligence Business intelligence Campaign management Web analytics Marketing dashboards CRM SEO analysis / auditing Email marketing Augmented reality Landing pages User communities Interactive ads Social features Web site Location Linked data RFID Digital products Search ads Internet of things Mobile marketing Behavioral targeting User-generated content
14. Technology Decisions in Marketing Behavioral Targeting Digital Asset Management Attribution Management Number of Decisions Conversion Optimization Mobile Marketing Organic SEO Management Marketing Resource Management Marketing Automation Video Campaign Management Social Media Monitoring E-Commerce Platform Bid/Keyword Management Web Content Management Ad Networks Web Analytics Email Marketing CRM Database Creative Design Time
17. Technology Decisions in Marketing Who decides? On what basis? • Marketers • IT department • Web shop • Vendors • Ad hoc • Technical depth • Right incentives • Business alignment • Accountability • Marketing vision
18. Bringing all those groups together doesn’t necessarily produce the best solution.
25. More like product development than IT because: • What customers experience • Engine for new revenue • Integral to the brand • Creative endeavor • Visible competitive positioning • Must innovate to succeed • Must be core competency
32. Marketing CTO(Chief Marketing Technologist) • Reports to CMO • Coordinates with IT • Coordinates with products • Technology expertise • Marketing savvy • Strategic role
33. Social media monitoring Digital asset management Competitive intelligence Business intelligence Campaign management Web analytics Marketing dashboards CRM SEO analysis / auditing Email marketing Augmented reality Landing pages User communities Interactive ads Social features Web site Location Linked data RFID Digital products Search ads Internet of things Mobile marketing Behavioral targeting User-generated content
34. Why Brands Should Embrace Technological Change “CMOs must… recognize that technology is no less a marketing tool than, say, market research, and appoint a marketing-technology czar to champion it… to act as a cross-functional facilitator and identify technology that can enhance marketing activity and brand building.” – Avi Dan, January 19, 2010
35. The Secrets of Marketing in a Web 2.0 World “Who should direct… Web 2.0 marketing? [An executive with skills] beyond those of a typical MBA holder or tech expert. We coined the term marketing technopologist for a person who brings together strengths in marketing, technology and social interaction.” – Salvatore Parise, Patricia Guinan, Bruce Weinberg
53. Agencies, technology vendors: do not fear. A technically-savvy marketing department can work with you faster and easier.
54. Thank you. the case for a marketing CTO at #MPSIS http://bit.ly/marketingCTO by @chiefmartec
Editor's Notes
Fellow marketers, I come to your with one premise: marketing must control its technological destiny.
Now, search marketing is riding a wave of new technology.
Bid management, landing page optimization, web analytics—lots of search marketing technology. Sometimes it can seem a little overwhelming, no? But we’re not just search marketers, we’re marketers…
And marketing overall is riding a killer wave of new technology.
Hundreds of amazing marketing technologies—search, email, video, social, commerce, conversion, multi-channel. Any guess how many companies are here? 141—and that’s just a sample. By the way, anyone who can tell me what each every one of these companies does, I will personally buy your beverage of choice at the bar tonight.
See, industry forces have created a perfect storm for marketing technology. The shift of money from old media is continuing, making digital a larger and larger market. Cloud computing and the inherent trackability of digital initiatives makes it easier to adopt and justify new technologies. And this special moment in time, where disruptive innovation opens doors for everyone—combined with the attractive economics of software—make barriers to entry relatively low. If you’ve got a brilliant idea, and you can prove it, you can launch a marketing technology venture.
The result is predictable: over the next 5 years you will see an explosion of marketing technology. You ain’t seen nothing yet.
It’s not just technology you buy. It’s technology you create. It’s not just applications, but platforms on which technically-proficient marketers can build innovations on the web, Facebook, iPhone, Android, the new iPad, interactive ads, the semantic web, and within your own products.
Digital marketing has grown far beyond the web site, and as marketers we now must manage a vast, extended web that includes landing pages, social media presence, mobile apps, and so on. Every year it’s like a whole new planet joins your solar system. The iPad and tablet computing just entered your gravitational field this year.
So if you take all of these marketing technologies—internal technologies that make us more efficient, external technologies that help us reach and engage our audience, and technologies embedded into our very products and services that now become an active part of marketing dynamics—you’ve got a really big stack of technology on your desk.
And it’s not just individual components—the real question is how all these pieces fit together.
Viewed another way, there’s been an exponential growth in the number of technology decisions that we marketers need to make. Not too long ago, the big issue might have been working with Macs or PCs, PageMaker or Quark Express. Nowadays, we’re inundated with choices: what do we do for marketing automation, attribution management, social media monitoring, conversion optimization, behavioral targeting. And again, every time a new one enters the field, it brings about decisions of how to integrate it with everything else.
At the same time, the impact of these technology decisions is bigger than ever. It’s not just about picking the vendor with the cheapest price. Your choices impact what marketing capabilities you’ll have, what your customers will experience, how efficient your operations will be, where you will gain or cede ground to your competition, and what synergies will blossom between your chosen technologies.
In other words, technology decisions and your marketing strategy are bound together. They’re symbiotic, interdependent on each other. And clearly immensely important.
But who makes these decisions? And on what basis? Marketers have the incentives and vision, but they rarely have the technical depth. IT has technical depth, but their incentives and vision follow a different path. Outside players can help, but their alignment with your business is inherently partial. No one of the groups gives you what you need. Now, you might say, “why not bring them all together?”
Unfortunately, that can be like the Democrats and Republicans in Congress. Contention doesn’t always lead to invention. It usually leads to deadlock or the lowest common denominator.
Speaking of contention… let’s talk about the relationship between marketing and IT for a moment. It sometimes feels like this. But having worked on both sides of the divide, I can say that there’s a very logical reason for this tug-of-war. Marketing and IT have different goals and incentives.
IT is focused on stability—making sure things work reliability, security, minimizing costs—after all, IT is a cost center, standardization and reusability, and meeting functional specifications. They’re incentivized to achieve these goals. Marketing, on the other hand, is more concerned with speed and agility, innovation, market impact, differentiation from competitors, and the net customer experience—because those are the things more relevant to marketing’s goals and incentives. It’s not that marketing doesn’t appreciate the things on the left—of course, we do—we just appreciate the things on the right more. And the reverse is true for IT. Now, you might say, tough cookie, IT is the guardian of technology—it’s in their name.
But IT doesn’t actually own all technology in a company.
For example, take Apple. They have a terrific IT department.
But the Mac, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad—none of these were IT projects. IT provides some relevant infrastructure, but they don’t drive product development.
I propose to you that the technology in marketing is much more like product development technology than it is IT technology. Why?
Because digital marketing is directly experienced by customers and prospects. It is an engine for new revenue. It’s integral to the brand—your marketing and your products are how the world sees you. This is how people compare you against your competitors. It’s a creative endeavor that must innovate to succeed. And given all this, you can’t outsource marketing—the holistic vision of marketing—to an offshore job shop. Innovation and marketing must be core competency.
So now I’m halfway through my talk, and you may be searching for the answer: how should marketing evolve in this new world?
Of course, we don’t just want to search for that… we want to decide, right?
For asserting your control and accountability—well, good news is, you’re already accountable. Leads, market share — you’re already responsible for outcome, and those outcomes are dependent upon your marketing technology capabilities. The CEO already thinks that digital marketing means marketing is now fully accountable for its performance and ROI.
So if you’re responsible for it, you’d better be in the driver’s seat. Being the concerned passenger who keeps asking, “Are we there yet?” isn’t going to work.
But if you don’t have technical depth—and you’re facing that exponentially growing stack of technology decisions—how do you decide which direction to go?
Marketing needs its own technology leadership firepower, and that is the impetus for a new role in the marketing department—the marketing CTO. The marketing CTO reports directly to the CMO, not the CIO—although he or she will certainly coordinate with IT and, increasingly, with product development. This person is a technologist—they have deep engineering and technical experience. But they are also marketing savvy and are passionate about its mission.
The marketing CTO sits at the intersection of this maelstrom of marketing technologies—and lives to connect the dots.
Now I’m just one marketing technologist waving his hands on stage, but people a lot smarter than me have been saying the same thing. Avi Dan, who was an executive at Young & Rubicam and Saatchi & Saatchi, wrote this editorial in Ad Age earlier this year that CMOs should appoint a marketing-technology czar—czar, you don’t see that too often on a business card—essentially a marketing CTO—to act as a cross-functional facilitator and identify technology that can enhance marketing and brand building.
A team of researchers from MIT Sloan came to similar conclusion, and were written up in the Wall Street Journal, recommending a “marketing technopologist” to head up web 2.0 marketing. Marketing technopologist = strengths in marketing + technology + social interaction. (If we can be as creative with the technology as we are the job titles, we’ll be golden.)
Now, I want to be clear—I am not advocating for another layer of management, I believe we’re increasingly in a flat-organization world. And I’m certainly not advocating for new C-level position—the CMO is the right person to be the unequivocal leader of all marketing.
Instead, I am suggesting that marketing technology become one of the vertical components of the marketing function. Resources that used to be begged, borrowed, or bought, become a native part of the marketing organization. If you don’t ascribe anything mystical to technology, and just treat it as a talent and skill set of the new marketing—part of the natural shift from old media to new media—then this is a completely logical move.
I do think it’s important to think of it holistically as marketing technology—spanning search, social, optimization, automation—all those different pieces of the puzzle. Like the other dimensions of marketing, I think the move away from strict silos such as search or social is important to the synthesis of the new marketing. There may be some specialization within, but it’s the broad fluency to connect the dots that is most important.
This marketing technology branch doesn’t have to implement everything. It will do some—how much depending on the situation. But it will also work with IT, the product team, outside agencies, technology vendors, contractors. The key is for marketing to have “positive control” over these initiatives, not just at a high conceptual level, but at a technology implementation level. Because, as we’ve seen, those implementation decisions do not reside in a vacuum.
And that’s really what a marketing CTO needs to do: manage the landscape a company’s marketing technology at both the 50,000 foot level and the 5-foot level, balance the big picture with the devil in the details.
Ultimately, the goal of the marketing CTO is to enable the CMO to wield technology as a strategic marketing capability. Analogous to relationship between a less-technical CIO and his or her CTO, or between a product CTO and the CEO. If the chemistry is right, this is a powerhouse combination.
But while the marketing CTO can be a great change agent, catalyst, and leader for this new dimension of marketing, integrating technology more deeply into the marketing function isn’t a one-person show. The future of marketing is having technologists seamlessly integrated throughout the marketing department, collaborating in synchronized harmony across many teams.
Now, I’m not saying that everyone in the marketing department has to be a technologist.
Just like not everyone in marketing is a “creative.” But even though not all marketers have background or talent in graphic design or art direction, such creative capabilities are part of the culture of marketing. We appreciate them and collaborate with them. A CMO doesn’t have to have been a Chief Creative Officer. But he or she must know how to wield and lead such resources.
And that’s how we must embrace technology, as one of the fundamental building blocks of marketing’s new DNA. It must become part of the culture. Let’s talk about some of the benefits of doing that.
Arthur C. Clarke, the guy who wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey, once said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. And if you cut-and-paste lots mysterious analytics code or optimization scripts into your web pages, you know how that feels first hand. But the problem with a completely black box approach is that it obscures risks and opportunities, breeds superstition, and makes it difficult to reveal and leverage interdependencies. By proactively cultivating a technology culture, marketing can go from being in the audience to being the magician—performing feats that cause your customers to ooh and ahh.
Speed and agility are increasingly at the heart of marketing’s competitiveness. A key benefit to imbuing marketing with technical talent is an acceleration of the clockspeed in implementing technology-based features. Part of this speed is purely organizational—having someone directly on your team, sitting right next to you, aligned perfectly with your mission is faster than crossing organizational boundaries and trying to get the attention of people who are not 100% focused on your mission. To talk tech: reduce switching costs and communication latencies.
But I think it will be even better than that. See, bringing technology culture into marketing will also import some of the operational paradigms that have powered rapid development in the Internet age. For instance, the methodologies of agile software development—a huge improvement over the rigid and time-consuming “waterfall” approach that preceded it—with a few tweaks, can provide the inspiration for “agile marketing” management approaches.
Similarly, software developers have years of experience perfecting the art of test-driven development, the underlying concepts of which can forge a kind of test-driven marketing methodology that leverages the malleable and trackable nature of our digital environment to systematically expand the reach and effectiveness of programs.
Which leads me to a culminating point—making marketing technology and official part of the marketing organization is ultimately a mandate because its scale and scope are only growing. One of those most fascinating fields of research is at the intersection of computer science and marketing—leveraging that tsunami of data and real-time experimentation and optimization, intertwined with human marketing expertise, to enable computational marketing, somewhat analogous to the revolution of computational finance. Thanks to cloud computing, these capabilities will not be limited to a handful of the Fortune 500—everyone will be able to leverage them. As long as you know how.
If I’ve persuaded you of the glorious potential of that future, the obvious question is: but where does one find these mythical marketing technologists?