Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Evaluating Martech Buzzwords: Hype vs. Results

Marketers are bombarded by advice on how to seize buzzword opportunities such as personalization, "big data," omnichannel, real-time marketing, and, most recently, artificial intelligence (AI). Those struggling to find room in real-world budgets often worry that they're falling behind in an escalating martech arms race! New research by Resulticks—a survey of over 300 marketing pros across industry verticals—offers interesting perspective. For example, "Big Data" was the hot topic at the 2013 DMA Annual Conference, with 50% of marketers enthusiastic about investing. But making practical sense of those data torrents turned out to be more difficult than expected. Resulticks finds that only 16% of today's marketers have fully implemented big data solutions, 20% have given up on the concept, and just 27% rank big data as a top priority now. Part of the problem is overhyped, underperforming martech platforms, per the survey, with 21% of marketers complaining that vendors overpromise and underdeliver. In contrast, personalization has done better in fulfilling expectations, with 60% of today's marketers reporting full or partial implementation. The only fly in the ointment: Tech investments have not always kept pace with enthusiasm, and only 20% rate their software ability to deliver personalization as "excellent." Back in 2014, many retailers were optimistic about an "omnichannel" approach to create a seamless customer experience across all channels. Resulticks finds that only 9% of today's marketers describe their approach as omnichannel, compared with 63% who use less comprehensive multichannel marketing. Only 35% have fully or partially implemented the required software platforms for omnichannel, and, among those who have bet on platforms, 58% rank vendor execution as "poor" to "fair." There's a better report card for the "real-time marketing" that rapidly uses data across channels for more timely, targeted engagement in the customer journey. Resulticks reports that 49% of marketers rate their real-time marketing ability as "good" to "excellent," that half say they have fully or partially implemented real-time marketing solutions, and that 47% say real-time is a priority for their organizations today. Most recently, social media giants have been betting on AI, and many marketers are following their lead. However, Resulticks' survey finds almost half (47%) of the marketers polled already rate AI as overhyped. Here's a big source of that skepticism: 43% of marketers believe martech software vendors overpromise and underdeliver, and 69% rate their vendors' ability to execute AI as "fair" to "poor." For more, see http://www.acculistusa.com/skeptical-of-marketing-tech-buzzwords-youre-not-alone/