It’s been another year of sophisticated developments in the marketing technology landscape. As artificial intelligence (AI) and automation advance, the possibilities for the ever-evolving martech and customer engagement technologies are exploding.
Thanks to the acceleration of digital and e-commerce during the pandemic, there is a growing desire for agile, cloud-based, flexible technology solutions that can adapt to business needs, whether it is commerce solutions or digital experience management or a combination.
Combine that with the need for marketing teams to de-cookie and consolidate their first-party data positions, both in terms of data management and security as well as operational capabilities, and it’s clear that integrating and optimizing martech and customer technology will be critical in 2022 and beyond.
In the second part of our special forecast series, CMOs look at what's needed to innovate and use marketing technology in the coming year.
1. Headless technology enables innovation at scale
The rise of headless technology is changing the landscape and elevating brands, according to Brian Vella, managing partner of AKQA.
Essentially, ‘headless’ means that content authoring and production is separate from its digital distribution or consumption channels. For example, a headless content repository could be leveraged by a standalone front-end to feed into a website or kiosk application via APIs. This desire for flexibility is expected to grow in 2022 as more organizations look to better leverage content and commerce to deliver experiences.
2. The Great Move to the Cloud
Sana Commerce CMO Jeroen Kuppens predicts the move to cloud everywhere will continue in 2022 and beyond. He suggests, again, that the urgency for this technology transition has been accelerated by the global pandemic.
3. Martech optimization is the name of the game
With the proliferation of martech systems in organizations today, it's no surprise to see some industry experts predicting an increased focus on better optimization and integration of tools in marketers' hands in 2022.
8 x 8 A/NZ marketing director Pablo Munoz points out the disruptions caused by Covid-19 have seen many organisations reassess martech budgets.
For Cheetah Digital principal solutions consultant Miles Toolin, this spells the death of the “build your own martech stack” phenomenon. He claims that build-your-own is becoming stale and “not showing results.”
Additionally, Toolin claims too many businesses are stuck in ‘transformation fatigue’ as they embark on their journeys based on trends like customer data platforms (CDPs), activation and personalization.
However, as we see more and more technology being enhanced, Zoho's chief strategy officer, Vijay Sundaram, believes that martech needs to be as personalized to the organization's needs as possible.
4. CDPs drive more meaningful customer relationships
Speaking of CDPs, Salesforce's regional vice president of Marketing Cloud, Kevin Doyle, is one of many who predict their exponential trajectory will continue in the new year.
Doyle describes a great CDP as one that is self-service, marketer-friendly, and an actionable system that automates and streamlines processes for marketers.
Insighten director Gagan Batra also sees the demise of third-party cookies and proposed changes to Australia's Privacy Act as a push for organisations to adopt better first-party data strategies and more holistic data collection mechanisms in the coming year.
5. Context-aware, anonymous personalization 100%
James Taylor, founder and CEO of Special Audiences and SimilarInc.com, is another who sees growing concerns around privacy, rights, security, and data ownership at the heart of the digital marketing debate in 2022. This has a direct impact on the growth of martech.
6. Interactive tools are growing powerfully
Eileen Tan predicts that interactive tools will thrive in 2022.
Personalization across the web, email, live chat/chatbots, digital advertising and other channels will ultimately help brands deliver customer-centric experiences that will capture the attention and dollars of their ideal customers in 2022, agrees BlackLine director of APAC marketing Fei Xiang Woon. Full Circle Insights CEO Bonnie Crater says advances in click-to-close technology will be another result of driving better conversions.
Original post: 12 martech trends to watch in 2022 – CMO Australia
Translated by: Phan Cong Duy
