Four in ten marketers expect an increase in tech investment during the next 12 months as AI, automation and analytics continue to disrupt and transform core tasks and processes, new research by the University of Bristol has found.
The third annual survey of 750 brands and agencies around the world found that ‘martech’, defined as the tools and software that marketers are leveraging to execute campaigns, will be a primary budgetary consideration in 2020 as the gains from digital transformation continue to accelerate.
More than three-quarters of respondents said that martech is now being deployed to support social media and email marketing, while a third are using it to streamline and optimise parts of content, CRM and analytics processes.
It is no surprise, then, that 43% of respondents who took part in interviews for the study said that they expect martech spend to increase next year.
Dr Emma Slade from the University of Bristol’s Department of Management said that she wanted to obtain “a deeper insight into the impact martech is having on brands and agencies, and how they navigate this increasingly crowded and complex environment”.
The rise in marketing technology has increased the demand for high-level data skills across the business and 21% now view strategy and data as a number one priority.
However, creativity is still valued within both businesses and agencies, and making use of data to inform and support the creative process will be a focus during the next year.
Dr Slade concluded that the “creativity, strategy, data debate” is something that the university will explore as we attempt to give our future marketing leaders the necessary skills.
