Martech guru Scott Brinker
recently released his latest marketing technology supergraphic, with almost double the number of marketing technology vendors of last year.
The biggest surprise?
Exactly that: the massive and continuing growth in vendors.
“I honestly did not expect it to double in density,” he says. “It
viscerally demonstrates just how much marketing has become a
tech-powered discipline and how much innovation is happening within that
domain.”
Above: Part of the supergraphic
Image Credit: Scott Brinker
I caught up to him to ask a few questions about the huge technology landscape, which has grown from
947 companies in early 2014, 350 in early 2013, and just a lonely 100 vendors in the first version, released late in 2011. Marketers who are
confused by all the tech in the space had it easy, seemingly, just a few short years ago.
But there is hope, Brinker says, for marketing departments that are just simply bogged down in all the confusion.
“Most companies should focus on the foundation: getting core web
experience management, CRM, and marketing automation up to the standards
their customers expect,” he said. “The important thing is to go with an
open architecture, either a cloud that supports an ISV community, or a
middleware solution that will make it easier to add and remove
capabilities down the road. Plan for change!”
In other words: no, you don’t need to know all 1,900 marketing tech
vendors. And no, you don’t have dive into integration hell with 75
different solutions. Keep it simple, and start with the basics.
The basics are where a lot of investment is going, and not just from the vendors.
A recent
5,000-marketer study from Salesforce
says that the top five areas marketers are investing in for 2015 are
their website, social engagement, social marketing, SEO/SEM, and landing
pages. That dovetails nicely with where Brinker is seeing major vendor
growth.
Above: Part of the supergraphic
Image Credit: Scott Brinker
“Overall, the biggest growth area has been with technologies related
to content marketing — not just the ‘content marketing’ category on the
graphic, but related categories in interactive content, influencer
marketing, personalization, and social media marketing,” he told me.
“Even some categories that have been around for a long time — email
marketing and web analytics — have had new entrants with fresh ideas.”
The question for laborers in the martech salt mines, of course, is
when is this massive explosion of innovation going to slow down. And
when will life return to “normal,” with standard tools and standard
processes. In other words, when will the good old days, the simple days,
return?
Don’t hold your breath.
Brinker says that innovation in the era of the cloud could be
fundamentally different than pre-cloud, as it’s simply quicker to create
and iterate martech solutions on the creation side, plus use and
integrate them on the consumption side. Open source technologies are
helping as well.
“With cloud and open source economics, the blurring of software and
services, and continued innovation in the consumer landscape (which
marketing tech is following, not leading), it’s possible that we may
have a very diverse and vibrant landscape for a while,” he says. “Of
course, there will only be a small number of major players. But the
ecosystems around them could be quite large.”
Imagining a 2016 supergraphic with almost 4,000 martech vendors on it
seems crazy. And, something that would strain the limits of the biggest
monitors.
That’s not likely: there’s almost certainly going to be some degree
of consolidation via a wave of acquisition. But don’t expect a smaller
number, either.
“There will be acquisitions and failures there, but I think we’ll
still see a lot of new entrants — the inflow will equal or exceed the
outflow,” Brinker says.
Source:
Venture Beat 
