Digital Marketing Enters its Third Decade: What Changed in the Last 10 Years

I don’t know about you, but I’m a little freaked out we are coming to the end of another decade. And though it seems to have passed in a blur, there have been tremendous changes in the function and role of marketing and its enabling technology. Scott Brinker launched his now infamous marketing technology landscape in 2011 with 150 products. Back then we were all marveling at the number. The 2019 version of the landscape showcased 7,000 products — a clear indication of the evolution of not only martech but how marketing does its job. Marketing is no longer just a profession, it’s an industry.     

There’s no need to revisit all the changes the last decade has brought to marketing, but let’s take stock of where we are as 2019 comes to a close, as a means to inform how we move forward. We leave this decade with a strong foundation for the future.

It’s All About the Customer Journey

The customer journey has evolved from a concept to the foundation of all marketing programs. Technology has given us many ways to segment our prospects and understand their behavior. We now have the set of tools we need to create rational, multi-touch marketing campaigns that are aligned with each step in the customer journey, delivering a better experience for customers and better results for businesses.

Me Me Me Me Me Me 

Consumers are exhausted by anything delivered as a “blast” — they are drowning in emails, ads and social outreach, and are fed up with cold sales calls. To get their attention requires a personalized approach. 

In this past decade we’ve moved from Dear [Name] to delivering content and messaging more closely tied to an individual’s profile. We are still in the early days of personalization. The next decade is going to bring dramatic innovation. 

Aligning Values

This last decade saw the rise of cause marketing, a natural follow-on to the early days of corporate social responsibility. More and more I’m having conversations with people about how their brand decisions are impacted by how aligned a brand is with their values. The “buy one — give one” model is well defined (Bombas, Tom’s Shoes) as is the “% of sales donation” model. 

These are great programs, but consumers want more. They need to believe that the companies they support with their wallets, treat their employees, contracts and the climate in a way that aligns with their values. Our current political environment has intensified these desires, and brands are rethinking how they communicate and demonstrate what they believe in and care about to their customers.  

A Holistic View of the Marketing Technology Stack

Marketing technology stacks more closely resemble jigsaw puzzles than a set of discrete building blocks. How products and the overall stack perform is very much related to how products are integrated across the stack and how data flows from one product to the next.

Marketing operations teams are focused on making sure that data moving through the stack is clean, complete and not duplicated. 

A Focus on Privacy and Security

This decade has seen the introduction of new data privacy laws and companies struggling with data breaches. Every day brings news of cyber issues. Marketing teams are incorporating comprehensive security reviews of new products that they are considering for purchase. 

Privacy regulations are still in their infancy, companies are working to comply with GDPR and other emerging regulations, but it’s still not clear how this will all play out and whether there will be a common set of standards across the US or wide ranges of disparate regulations. 

Discipline Around Purchasing and Oversight of Marketing Technology

The days of swiping of credit cards are over. Companies are busy rationalizing marketing technology stacks to eliminate non-performing, unused, and redundant products, functions and contracts. According to Gartner, technology spend is now at 29% of the marketing budget. At this percentage, technology has a significant impact on customer acquisition costs so new purchases must be considered carefully. One of the things I’ve been most surprised about is how many companies, big and small, have not until recently had a formal purchasing process for marketing technology.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Has Crossed the Chasm in Marketing 

We’ve lived through three years of AI hype with AI being touted as the latest necessary ingredient in every product — the anti-oxidant of martech so to speak, whether it made sense or not. Everyone has now come to their senses, vendors recognize that no marketer is going to write an RFP for “AI,” and marketers are less concerned about whether a product leverages AI and are back to focusing on what a product can deliver. 

In this newly enlightened world we are now actually starting to see substantive applications of AI technology in analyzing huge data sets of information (e.g. media analysis), supporting first-line customer service inquiries, and in developing micro-market segments. It’s going to be exciting to see how AI changes marketing over the next decade.

What’s Old Is New Again…

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