Happy holiday season, ye merry marketing maestros! Here’s a marvelous way to get prepped and psyched for the New Year that’s right around the corner. Frans Riemersma and I just released our latest report, Martech for 2025. It’s 108 pages of our latest research and analysis of what’s actually happening with marketing technology in the maelstrom of AI madness. No heaps of hype. Just hard data and a hopefully helpful framing of the facts. You … Martech for 2025: A brand-new, 108-page report on AI use cases, stack foundations, and market structure Continue Reading ..read more

Last week, Mike Rizzo and team at MarketingOps.com hosted their annual MOps-Apalooza event with 400+ marketing ops people. I was honored to be one of their keynote speakers, and I’ll share the core theme of my talk with you in a moment. But first… They also released their annual State of the Marketing Operations Professionals, an epic 87-page report that surveyed more than 600 marketing ops pros on almost every facet of their careers. It’s … The state of marketing operations professionals is OK, but it’s going to get much, much better Continue Reading ..read more

Sorry that it’s been a while since I last posted. But I have a good excuse. Frans Riemersma and I have been deep in research on what’s happening in martech for the year ahead — a big part of which has been sorting through much fact vs. fiction with generative AI. What’s the deal with existing martech platforms vs. new, AI-native products popping up like wildflowers? Will AI agents actually impact marketing in 2025? How? … The one presentation about martech for 2025 — and the AI madness around it — you won’t want to miss Continue Reading ..read more

I have two surveys for you that I think you’ll love. The first is one that I’m asking you to take: a cut-through-the-BS survey on the real ways in which you’re seeing gen AI used in your organization — or not. This data will contribute to the “Martech for 2025” report and virtual event Frans Riemersma and I will be sharing on December 3. More details to follow. Both of us and thousands of your … Companies are replacing more martech, focused on integrations and APIs, and still expanding their stacks Continue Reading » The post Companies are replacing more martech, focused on integrations and AP ..read more

If you’re reading this blog, it’s a safe bet that you’ve been involved in buying — or selling — martech software. Probably quite a bit of martech software. So I greatly appreciate that a number of you responded to my survey over LinkedIn asking what you loved and hated about that experience and which resources you found helpful and trustworthy (or not!) in that process. Here’s what you, at least the collective “you,” had to … Buying martech: what you love, what you hate, and who you trust (or not) Continue Reading » The post Buying martech: what you love, what you hate, and who you trust (or n ..read more

How do you know you’re at the peak of a Hype Cycle? When means outweigh ends. Martech professionals and marketing ops leaders are being driven to apply AI in marketing — use it for something, anything! — with the belief that automating and accelerating things with AI, especially with generative AI, must produce beneficial outcomes. It reminds me of the old joke about the overly-optimistic kid excitedly digging through a giant pile of horse manure, … Will AI in martech make buyer experiences better or worse? It depends… Continue Reading » The post Will AI in martech make buyer experiences bette ..read more

For 13 years of the ever-expanding martech landscape, conventional wisdom has predicted that our industry would consolidate. That conventional wisdom has failed spectacularly. Or more accurately, the conventional wisdom of the software industry from 10, 20, 30 years ago has been disrupted by new dynamics, in a new environment. The barriers to creating software are a fraction of what they once were — and are rapidly shrinking further with AI. The barriers to distributing software … Blueprint for a hypothetical martech “holding company” for a world where aggregation beats consolidation Continue ..read more

Take a guess at filling in the blank here: _______ is to AI Agents as Data is to AI Models The answer, as you likely surmised from my headline, is APIs. Let’s discuss why… Data is the differentiation in AI models For the past year and a half, the hyper hype cycle of AI madness has agreed on only one clear truth: data will be your most strategic asset in the Age of AI. LLM AI engines from OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Meta, et al., are ultra-powerful — but increasingly commoditized. Anyone can use them. Competitive advantage at the model level is only achieved by combining these engines with a cr ..read more

For years, the conventional wisdom in martech has been: the fewer apps in your stack, the better. It’s obvious, right? By reducing the number of apps, you will save money, have a better user experience, and improve your governance control. The CFO’s default answer to optimizing martech costs? Cut apps. The CIO’s default answer to optimizing martech governance? Cut apps. Seems rational. But what if it wasn’t necessarily true? Last week, on #MartechDay (May 7), Frans Riemersma and I released the 2024 martech landscape, celebrated the 2024 Stackie Awards, and published a new 101-page report on T ..read more

Yesterday we celebrated the 10th annual Stackie Awards as part of #MartechDay. Every year for the past decade, we’ve invited marketers to send in a single slide that illustrates their marketing tech stack and how they conceptualize it. From these entries, we select five “winners” whose visualizations we thought were particularly noteworthy in some way. I put “winners” in quotes because, as we always acknowledge, the real determination of a winning stack is if it delivers value to your business. But it’s still fun to celebrate with a few awards for some remarkable illustrations. Truthfully, ev ..read more