What Happened to Martech Consolidation?
Martech vendors were supposed to merge, and tech stacks were supposed to shrink. So, why is the martech landscape growing by 27.8% year on year?
Technology is central to marketing at every type of company. Without technology, there would be no website, no CRM and no reporting. For years now, CMOs have invested a growing share of their budgets in marketing applications in order to drive more revenue and expand marketing capabilities. Tech stacks have now grown to the point where, in many organisations, the discussion is often about tech stack consolidation rather than technology acquisition. Yet, every single time I've worked on a tech stack optimisation project, we've ended up adding new technologies as well as removing existing ones.
The Landscape
The same discussion has been taking place regarding the overall marketing technology landscape for several years. There has been plenty of buzz around vendor consolidation, and numerous high-profile merger and acquisition deals in the martech sector. Such talk only heightened after last year's Venture Capital crunch, which resulted in a significant drop in investment for start-ups across the entire technology ecosystem.