Investing in marketing technology is essential, but how do you know if it’s paying off? Columnist Erik Bratt offers some advice.
During a recent onsite visit in San Francisco, I asked the CMO for a major tech company how many separate marketing technologies her company was using to generate results.
The executive’s response: “I’m not sure.” She checked with some of her staffers, who began ticking off one random solution after another. The end result: no one knew for sure.
The CMO and her team are likely not alone, given the tidal wave of new marketing technology over the last decade. Depending on whom you ask, there are anywhere from 1,000 to 3,000 digital solutions currently on the market – everything from marketing automation and retargeting to analytics and testing and personalization.
The executive’s honest answer — and the reaction of her team — raises an interesting question: have we become so inundated with technology, and applied it in such haphazard fashion, that we can no longer keep track of it?
