MediaPost | Research Brief

MarTech's Evolving More Rapidly Than Marketers' Use of It

Fri, 03 May 2019 19:05:04 -0400

MarTech is evolving rapidly, trouble is, marketers may not be keeping pace with tech advancements. According to Walker Sands' 2018 Marketing Technology report, more than two-thirds of marketers don't think there's such a thing as the "perfect stack" for marketing technology, believing instead that it's always a work in progress. The survey, conducted among 300 marketers in Q1 from companies of various sizes, found that the majority feel that the marketing technology landscape has evolved rapidly (48%) or at light speed (15%) over the past 3 years.

Consumer Ambivalence Towards Self-Driving Cars

Mon, 29 Apr 2019 19:50:05 -0400

Recent research by GlobalWebIndex reveals internet users in the UK and the U.S. are ambivalent about self-driving cars. Internet users in the UK and U.S. are split down the middle between enthusiasm and concern about autonomous cars.

Couples in the Workforce

Wed, 16 Jan 2019 14:00:04 -0500

In an ideal world, men and women would be equally likely to be the breadwinner of a couple. But the analysis found that in the 50 largest metros, women were the main breadwinner in less than 31% of couples' households. In the 10 major U.S. cities with the highest rates of couples with female breadwinners, roughly three in 10 couples have a woman earning more than her partner.

Sales And Martech Traction

Mon, 14 Jan 2019 08:55:03 -0500

The sales and marketing technology landscape has changed, says Craig Rosenberg, Co-Founder & Chief Analyst of Topo. Years of venture funding, resources, and buzz created a large swath of sales and martech companies.

In 2019 it will be time for these companies to show traction, and many of them won’t be able to. Looking to the new year, there is a long list of sales and marketing tech vendors that have had their growth stalled for a number of reasons: failure to find a use case with broad market appeal, product based on a feature, or quite simply couldn’t execute.

While these companies might have received more funding two or three years ago, in today’s climate VCs are not replenishing their offers. Today, there are big rounds for those with momentum and a big story, or no funding for those that don’t.

Looking ahead, says Rosenberg, we can expect to see the sales-martech stack consolidate heavily. Two market factors will drive this consolidation: the 2019 buyer’s market and the slowdown in Series A funding for new market entrants.

2019 is going to be a buyer’s market, predicts the report. Roll-ups will continue to dominate the martech/salestech landscape at least through the 1st half of 2019. And, barring an economic meltdown, these roll-ups will come from bigger vendors and emerging companies with fresh venture

capitol (e.g. Drift’s acquisition of Siftrock, Showpad-Learncore).

The Adobe-Marketo acquisition will force the other marketing clouds (like Oracle, SAP, Salesforce) to look more aggressively, and to use acquisitions in order to build the functionality to compete, says the report. Vista, the PE firm that owned Marketo and sold to Adobe, is one of the many to watch in 2019.

The other factor driving contraction in the sales and martech stack is the changing funding situation for seed and early stage. After years of funding hundreds of companies, the funding scene has slowed. Two years ago, for every company that was acquired or folded, three new ones were created. That is no longer the case, says the report.

The large volume of vendors competing with the entire tech landscape. Now they can understand their place in the market, focus on a smaller set of competitors, and fit into categories that actually have buying momentum, concludes the report.

Digital Strategy Pitfalls

Thu, 10 Jan 2019 20:30:03 -0500

According to an article in the McKinsey Quarterly in 2018, By Jacques Bughin, Tanguy Catlin, Martin Hirt, and Paul Willmott, most digital strategies don’t reflect how digital is changing economic fundamentals, industry dynamics, or what it means to compete. The processing power of today’s smartphones are several thousand times greater than that of the computers that landed a man on the moon in 1969. These devices connect the majority of the human population, and they’re only ten years old.

According to the report, there are the five common digital strategy pitfalls companies companies must avoid.

Pitfall 1: Fuzzy definitions
When we talk with leaders about what they mean by digital, some view it as the upgraded term for what their IT function does. Others focus on digital marketing or sales. But very few have a broad, holistic view of what digital really means. We view digital as the nearly instant, free, and flawless ability to connect people, devices, and physical objects anywhere. Lacking a clear definition of digital, companies struggle to connect digital strategy to their business, leaving them adrift in the fast-churning waters of digital adoption and change. What’s happened with the smartphone over the past ten years should haunt you, and no industry will be immune.

Pitfall 2: Misunderstanding the economics of digital
Consider these three: Just as sobering as the shift of profit pools to customers is the fact that when scale and network effects dominate markets, economic value rises to the top. At the highest level, our colleagues’ research on economic profit distribution highlights the existence of a power curve that has been getting steeper over the past decade, and is characterized by big winners and losers at the top and bottom, respectively. Our research on digital revenue growth, meanwhile, shows it turning sharply negative for the bottom three quartiles of companies, while increasing for the top quartile.

Pitfall 3: Overlooking ecosystems
Understanding the new economic rules will move you ahead, but only so far. Digital means that strategies developed solely in the context of a company’s industry are likely to face severe challenges. Traditional approaches such as tracking rivals’ moves closely, and using that knowledge to fine-tune overall direction or optimize value chains are increasingly perilous.

Pitfall 4: Overindexing on the ‘usual suspects’
Most companies worry about the threats posed by digital natives, whose moves get most of the attention, and the disruptive nature of their innovative business models certainly merits some anxiety. Excessive focus on the usual suspects is perilous, though, because incumbents, too, are digitizing and shaking up competitive dynamics.

Pitfall 5: Missing the duality of digital
The most common response to digital threats we encounter is the following: “If I’m going to be disrupted, then I need to create something completely new.” Understandably, that becomes the driving impetus for strategy. Yet for most companies, the pace of disruption is uneven, and they can’t just walk away from existing businesses. They need to digitize their current businesses and innovate new models.

Predictions From The Informed

Tue, 08 Jan 2019 10:00:05 -0500

Among the predictions for the media, internet and communications industry for 2019 are that Cord-cutters are going to keep on cutting, but investors who think fixed 5G will be universally adopted should think again.

Thanksgiving Day To Cyber Monday

Mon, 07 Jan 2019 06:05:03 -0500

The five-day period spanning Thanksgiving to the Monday following (aka Cyber Monday) this year delivered a concentrated dose to online retailers. Internet Retailer estimates that U.S. shoppers spent $22.55 billion online during the Cyber 5 period, up 19.3% from $18.90 billion in 2017.

Near Me Searching

Thu, 03 Jan 2019 06:15:03 -0500

Google recently revealed that “near me” mobile searches (e.g., “H&M near me” or “pizza near me”) have increased 200%. As mobile searching has exploded, it’s fundamentally changing the way people shop today. Uberall polled +1,000 holiday shoppers in the US + UK to find out.

Uberall, Inc., a location marketing solution for businesses competing to attract local brick-and-mortar customers, recently polled more than 1,000 smartphone users across the US and UK between December 7 and 11 to understand their “near me” preferences and behavior over the holiday season to date.

79% of all shoppers say they have already used a ‘near me’ search from their mobile device over the holiday season, or believe they will before the New Year. 21% have not done this type of search so far, and don’t anticipate doing so this holiday season.

Between US and UK shoppers, ‘near me’ searches were more prevalent in the US. Over the holidays, 83% of US shoppers have searched ‘near me’ while 75% did so in the UK.
Founder & Co-CEO of Uberall, Florian Huebner, says that “Consumers are increasingly using their smartphones to research places before they shop and are prioritizing proximity when doing so. Marketers must leverage a search strategy that lures shoppers who may not be directly seeking them out and are, instead, looking for the same category near their location.”
The study found that nearly 30% of shoppers have left a review of a brick-and-mortar store across sites such as Yelp, Facebook, Google, Foursquare, Instagram and more during the holiday season. Meanwhile, 71% of respondents have not

The study goes on to say:

71% of respondents said they were likely to conduct a ‘near me’ search for the nearest restaurant (quick-service or fast-food) while out holiday shopping.
Just 15% said they were unlikely to do a ‘near me’ search, and 14% were unsure.
When asked how likely a shopper was to conduct a ‘near me’ search for the nearest bank or ATM while holiday shopping, 51% said they were likely, while 34% were unlikely and 16% said they weren’t sure, says the report.

When asked how shoppers use their smartphones to help them shop during the holiday season, the top 5 responses globally were:

Compare prices (80%),
buy directly from the device (79%),
research products (72%),
check for store hours (71%)
and search for coupons and deals (65%).

Mobile is the key to the holiday shopping season, concludes Huebner. From ‘near me’ for brick-and-mortar to comparing prices, shoppers this time of year will rely heavily on their mobile devices to make their shopping experience easier.

Global Shopping Behaviors

Wed, 02 Jan 2019 06:15:03 -0500

As the traditional consumer purchase journey continues to evolve, so too should the way merchants think about their sales opportunities. BigCommerce conducted a global survey of nearly 3,000 digital consumers to find out.

Top Ten Tech Trends for 2019

Tue, 01 Jan 2019 09:35:03 -0500

Jupiter Research provides an assessment of what they find will be the critical developments in the tech space over the coming year. Developments that will impact upon, and be driven by, both players across the value chain and the consumers themselves.

Juggling Media

Mon, 31 Dec 2018 11:00:04 -0500

When it comes to the media universe, the abundance in devices, services and content has never been more prevalent. With all of this technology at consumers' fingertips, pretty much all of them are focused on "all of it", says the report. According to the most recent Nielsen Total Audience Report, adults in the U.S. spent almost 10 and a half hours a day with media in the second quarter of 2018,

Veterans Connect with Brands with Military Discounts

Wed, 26 Dec 2018 06:15:03 -0500

Military service members and veterans are increasingly seeking out military discounts when they shop online

Traditional TV And Radio Hold Their Own

Mon, 24 Dec 2018 06:15:03 -0500

People are spending more time with media than ever before, says MarketingCharts' newly-released 5th annual "US Media Audience Demographics" report, a data-driven resource that can aid marketers in their strategic decision-making. The study sizes up the media landscape.

CDP's Under The Microscope

Fri, 21 Dec 2018 06:15:03 -0500

Marketer interest in CDPs continues to accelerate. In the first half of 2018, Gartner client inquiries pertaining to CDPs doubled when compared with the same period of the previous year. 52% of marketing leaders responsible for data and analytics said data management, data integration and formatting are among their most time-consuming activities.

Fight Back

Thu, 20 Dec 2018 09:25:03 -0500

The cat-and-mouse game between online merchants and fraudsters commenced the instant the first buy buttons appeared in 1994. Then, as now, clever criminals are always finding increasingly sophisticated ways around retailers' latest defenses.

The Cloud Saves The Day

Wed, 19 Dec 2018 06:15:03 -0500

To maximize value from the cloud, retailers need to prioritize workflows that can best benefit from it. The report shares six opportunities for leveraging the cloud as a catalyst for accelerating delivery of business results.

Cross Channel Fulfillment

Tue, 18 Dec 2018 09:05:04 -0500

Grocers, Convenience, & Drug Stores are feeling the pressure In RSR's just-published study on the state of the retail supply chain. "Quantifying labor & shipment costs for cross-channel fulfillment" was rated the top operational challenge by 45% of the non-FMCG retailers, compared to 70% for FMCG'ers, that's only part of the story.

IGTV for B2B Marketers

Mon, 17 Dec 2018 06:15:03 -0500

Instagram now has 1 billion users, one of the most popular social networks in the world. And, Instagram recently announced a new service: IGTV (Instagram TV).

Don't Underestimate Email-Based Brand Risks

Fri, 14 Dec 2018 06:15:03 -0500

Marketing executives less concerned about threats than IT/security colleagues - but have a common interest in email service visibility and deliverability

The State of Cloud Adoption

Thu, 13 Dec 2018 12:15:03 -0500

Cloud computing continues to make enterprise inroads, according to two recent Deloitte studies that shed light on business acceptance of cloud solutions and services. The vast majority of business executives who responded to the 2018 global outsourcing survey, 93%, say their organizations are adopting or considering the cloud.

Benchmarking Benefits Crucial to Success

Wed, 12 Dec 2018 06:15:03 -0500

Measuring your public relations efforts means more than just monitoring your brand. It means using media intelligence to set up metrics, which can include any combination of: mentions, message penetration, sentiments or other attributes, and compare them against your industry, competitors or your own past performance.

Think About It

Tue, 11 Dec 2018 14:00:04 -0500

B2B marketers and salespeople significantly underestimate the impact of thought leadership on demand generation and sales efforts, compared to actual feedback from B2B buyers, according to new research from Edelman and LinkedIn

Fashion Business

Fri, 07 Dec 2018 23:15:03 -0500

The year ahead will be an awakening, says the report, after the reckoning of 2018, a time for fashion companies to look at opportunities and not just at surmounting challenges.

Online Ad Spending

Wed, 05 Dec 2018 16:50:04 -0500

Online advertising revenues in the US reached $25.6 billion in the first half of 2018, with mobile accounting for 63% of the total, according to the latest revenue report from the IAB and PwC

AI A Strong Partner

Tue, 04 Dec 2018 11:15:03 -0500

AI is making a big impact on how sales teams function. It won't replace your sales manager, writes Suzie Blaszkiewicz, but the use of artificial intelligence in sales can automate some of the menial tasks involved in successfully closing a deal.

Martech Revolves Around ROI

Mon, 03 Dec 2018 06:15:03 -0500

Problems integrating platforms can present a serious barrier to omnichannel marketing activities.

Travel And Retail Marketers Under Most Pressure

Thu, 29 Nov 2018 06:15:03 -0500

In B2C markets, digital marketers, trying to acquire new customers, face growing competition and increasing pressure from executives. But the obstacles they need to overcome, rising costs, consumer privacy concerns, and the challenge of differentiating their brand in a noisy marketplace, are just as formidable.

Your Personal Brand

Wed, 28 Nov 2018 14:15:03 -0500

To help us understand what personal branding means to different generations, Gilsenan says "we looked at attitudes, interests and behaviors of Gen X(aged 36-54),Millennials(aged 22-35), and Gen Z (aged 16-21).

IAB Ad Revenue Continues Upward

Tue, 27 Nov 2018 06:15:04 -0500

The IAB internet advertising revenue report 2018, for the first six months conducted by PwC and sponsored by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, shows the IAB internet advertising revenue report, now in its 23rd year at November 2018, revenues increase 23.1% from HY 2017.

Thanksgiving's Hot With Few Glitches

Mon, 26 Nov 2018 06:16:03 -0500

According to timely writing by Stephanie Crets on Nov 23, 2018, Thanksgiving and Black Friday online sales are blowing past expectations. Black Friday is on track to reach more than $6.4 billion in online sales, according to Adobe Analytics.