Global Martech market value at $121.5bn

The global marketing technology market is now valued at an estimated $121.5 billion, representing a year-on-year increase of 22 per cent, finds international accountancy and business advisory firm BDO, and WARC, the worldwide authority on advertising and media effectiveness.
This and other key findings are included in their ‘Martech: 2020 and beyond’ report, published recently.

Global Martech market value at $121.5bn

For a third consecutive year, the report, based on an annual survey of more than 750 brands and agencies in the Americas, United Kingdom, Europe and Asia-Pacific to assess the current state and future expectations of the marketing technology industry demonstrates the health of the martech industry, with growth in budgets over the past year and further investments planned.

Damian Ryan, Media & Technology Partner, BDO, said, “The continuing consumer appetite for adopting digital technologies is driving growth in the market and providing opportunities for both big and small vendors of marketing tools across the globe.

“Marketers always need time to get their arms around new technologies, however, when marketers see competitive reasons to deploy these faster, this can cause problems in the access and resourcing of the right talent and skills. This prominent issue bears out in the report from the 750 brands and agencies surveyed.”

The majority of marketers globally expect martech budgets to stay the same over the next 12 months, but 43 per cent expect an increase and only 4 per cent expect budgets to decrease.On average, brands in North America and the UK are spending 26 per cent of their budgets on martech compared to 23 per cent last year. Whilst North America has doubled its martech spend over the last two years, spend in the UK, a more mature market, has remained steady.
Though there has been substantial discussion in the industry regarding the in-housing of tech and services by brands from their agency partners, this year’s results do not indicate a trend towards more in-housing of martech. The split between in-house and outsourced technology is around 50:50 in all regions – a ratio that offers room for growth both in the outsourced and in-house tech vendor markets.
Marketing technology – automation software, analytics tools and emerging tech such as AI – are all helping marketers to optimise their media spend. Whilst in last year’s survey, the majority of brands felt that increased investment in martech had caused their media spend to decrease, this year, that number has dropped to under a third, with most respondents feeling that spend has been unaffected by martech investment.

Established disciplines are where the majority of respondents find a use for martech tools. More than three-quarters of brands use martech to assist them with email and social media, and more than a third for content, CRM and analytics.