It’s no surprise that innovations in marketing technology happen all of the time. But as there’s clearly no shortage of complex projects requiring seemingly complex solutions, I’ve noticed that 2016 so far looks like a year of maturity. We’re making sense of the many martech innovations thrown at us over the last few years and really starting to harness them.

More Holistic and Yet More Granular Use of Marketing Technology

As organizations grapple with how to better use existing, maturing marketing technology, we’re seeing two trends that seem contradictory but are actually connected.

  • Holistic: Instead of using an overwhelming variety of platforms offered by third party vendors, organizations are starting to consolidate platforms. By doing so, key stakeholders aim to cut down on redundant technologies while increasing the business impact across the organization.
  • Granular: Because organizations have marketing needs related to specific industries, customers, and product/service features, they require customized technology. As a result, we see an abundance of diverse marketing technology tools and platforms that only existed in a general sense a few years ago.

Location-Based Services (LBS) Now Turnkey

LBS’s “wow factor” during 2016 isn’t the technology itself but its wider adoption by organizations. Turnkey solutions now make it easier for organizations to immediately get up and running. For examples, retailers have jumped on technologies like iBeacon in order to target customers entering, passing by, or leaving their stores. Plus, users are becoming more accustomed to LBS and increasingly see it as beneficial to their mobile experience.

Mobile Technology Getting Easier to Deploy and Use

After many years during which mobile felt like the early days of the Internet, we’ve mostly arrived. Really, we’re just reaping what we’ve sowed. Mobile ads, content, websites, payments, personalization, and analytics all continually get better—which means more organizations are jumping in and figuring out how to use mobile technology. Users also engage more with what Google terms “micro-moments”—and mobile technology gets smarter about delivering the right information at the right time in real time.

Personalization Improving Slowly but Surely

Personalization data and its use by organizations is still arguably not in a mature place, but it’s getting there. As big data aggregators improve and data collection gets better, we see more third party services, plug-ins, and even built-in personalization features appearing in some CMSs. Obviously, marketers want this data to help deliver more targeted ads, content, and messaging. Right now, it helps if you have a marketing technology professional help you evaluate products, understand your data requirements, and craft a solution that realistically meets your needs. Some cutting-edge personalization capabilities may look tempting, but you don’t want to scare away users who are wary about privacy issues.

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Overall, marketing technology is in an exciting state as many powerful tools and platforms mature and get better. Stay tuned to our blog as we keep track of these technologies!