My good friends at MarTech.org not long ago released their hottest Martech Substitution Survey 2022, where by marketers shared which applications they’ve replaced above the past 18 months, what their principal drive was in undertaking so, and what have been their most crucial components in selecting the substitute remedy.
Promoting automation (24%), CRM (23%), Website positioning (23%), e-mail advertising and marketing (22%), and do the job/task administration (19%) applications had been the most frequently replaced.
As I highlighted in blue in the chart over, the #1 most typically cited aspect in selecting their alternative remedy was integration capabilities/open up API — chosen by 56% respondents, up 13% factors from the identical survey in 2021.
It’s a top rated 5 theme of this decade in martech: platforms, networks & marketplaces.
Of course, this is not to say that the other factors — cost, guidance, stability, etcetera. — weren’t critical also. But the issue that most marketers agreed on was integration. If it won’t integrate with the relaxation of the tech stack, almost everything else is moot. It is the tree that falls in the forest with no everyone close to to hear it.
The second most widespread aspect was knowledge centralization/facts abilities (preferred by 50% of respondents), which is closely tied to integration. Soon after all, knowledge is the foundational layer of integrations.
Tied in second also with 50% was “ability to measure ROI” — which is heading to be on the major of everyone’s minds in our tighter economic climate. But to measure ROI, you need to have the data. And to get the details, you will need integrations. These 3 variables are bound together by atomic forces.
But what inspired marketers to find out a substitute remedy in the initial put?
When wanting to swap a business application (the survey handles alternative of homegrown applications individually), the #1 inspiration was superior functions (53%). Of class, this makes sense. Marketers appear to martech to give them the abilities required to conduct in continuously shifting and evolving marketplaces. What you can do issues.
Nonetheless, I would have expected the #2 commitment to be expense — trying to get an choice answer to minimize expenses. That was the study final result in 2021.
But in 2022, superior/simpler integration was the second most popular motivation (24%, up 5% points from 2021) to look for a replacement application. Essentially, a want for superior integration induced 1 out of each individual 4 martech application substitute assignments.
That is quite remarkable.
I have mentioned this a lot of instances just before to martech merchandise teams: the sector is speaking to you with a good booming voice in the sky, “Treat integration as a initially-class element!”
Progressively, the martech sector — and the SaaS universe much more broadly — have taken this to coronary heart. A new research report from Pandium on the Condition of Integrations and APIs at 400 SaaS Organizations displays that 86% of the Best 100 SaaS businesses in the world now have a general public integration marketplace. (73% of them have an in-application market.)
That is remarkable and a strong testament to the value of application ecosystems for big SaaS firms.
But what is even extra telling is that 31% of seed-phase SaaS startups now attribute a community integration market as well. Nearly 1 out 3 SaaS startups — which are specially strapped for time and sources, compelled to make incredibly difficult decisions about what to prioritize — have preferred to prioritize developing both integrations and a market to make it quick for shoppers to learn and use them.
It’s heartening to see martech purchasers and sellers agree: integration is vital.
We however have further to go on this journey of martech platforms and ecosystems. But as an business, at least’s we’re all marching in the exact way with a significantly much more seamlessly and powerfully built-in potential on the horizon forward.