Despite Widespread Consolidation, Martech Continues to Flourish

Marketing technology — or martech — can be a mystifying category, especially in today’s media landscape. The phrase encapsulates a wealth of different digital marketing tools and services that often fail to fall within a specific industry vertical or product classification. What’s more, the number of businesses offering martech solutions has ballooned of late, which has led to a dizzyingly over-saturated market that can be tough for businesses to navigate.

In a recent LinkedIn Pulse post, “How to Stand Out in an Increasingly Crowded Martech Landscape,” Vice President Erica Frank explored the current state of this fast-growing industry. In the piece, she offers up the important questions martech companies need to ask themselves if they want to stand apart from the many other players hoping to claim a stake of this lucrative market.

Erica also takes a look at some of the recent big-name martech mergers and acquisitions making headlines over the past year, which raises a few interesting points about what martech really means. For instance, companies that once only offered measurement or analytics software are now coming under the corporate umbrella of complementary tech giants that offer social media advertising tools, to name just one example.

While mergers and acquisitions generally signal market consolidation, which usually indicates a shrinking landscape, that’s not necessarily the case for martech. While the number of independent companies offering martech services may be shrinking as they fold into larger corporations, investment into martech services is still sky-high — and growing.

All told, despite uncertainties regarding classification and naming in the future, martech as we know it today will continue to be a booming — albeit competitive — sector in the years to come.