Marketers keep replacing major martech apps, integration #1 factor for replacements

My close friends at MarTech.org a short while ago introduced their newest Martech Substitution Survey 2022, the place marketers shared which applications they’ve changed above the earlier 18 months, what their most important drive was in doing so, and what have been their most significant factors in deciding on the substitution solution.

Advertising automation (24%), CRM (23%), Search engine optimisation (23%), email internet marketing (22%), and do the job/job administration (19%) apps were being the most regularly changed.

As I highlighted in blue in the chart previously mentioned, the #1 most usually cited issue in deciding upon their substitute option was integration abilities/open up API — selected by 56% respondents, up 13% details from the exact study in 2021.

It is a major 5 theme of this ten years in martech: platforms, networks & marketplaces.

Of program, this isn’t to say that the other components — charge, assist, stability, and many others. — weren’t critical too. But the component that most marketers agreed on was integration. If it will not combine with the rest of the tech stack, almost everything else is moot. It’s the tree that falls in the forest with out any one all over to listen to it.

The next most frequent variable was info centralization/facts capabilities (picked out by 50% of respondents), which is intently tied to integration. Following all, info is the foundational layer of integrations.

Tied in 2nd also with 50% was “ability to measure ROI” — which is likely to be on the major of everyone’s minds in our tighter economic system. But to measure ROI, you have to have the details. And to get the facts, you want integrations. These 3 variables are sure alongside one another by atomic forces.

But what determined entrepreneurs to seek out a alternative answer in the to start with put?

When on the lookout to swap a commercial application (the study handles replacement of homegrown apps separately), the #1 inspiration was far better functions (53%). Of system, this makes sense. Marketers look to martech to give them the capabilities essential to accomplish in regularly shifting and evolving markets. What you can do issues.

However, I would have expected the #2 determination to be cost — trying to find an substitute alternative to cut down costs. That was the survey result in 2021.

But in 2022, improved/less difficult integration was the 2nd most typical determination (24%, up 5% points from 2021) to find a substitute app. In essence, a motivation for greater integration activated 1 out of each 4 martech application alternative initiatives.

Which is rather exceptional.

I have claimed this numerous occasions in advance of to martech merchandise groups: the sector is talking to you with a great booming voice in the sky, “Treat integration as a initial-course characteristic!”

Ever more, the martech field — and the SaaS universe extra broadly — have taken this to heart. A new investigation report from Pandium on the Condition of Integrations and APIs at 400 SaaS Providers exhibits that 86% of the Prime 100 SaaS businesses in the globe now have a public integration market. (73% of them have an in-app marketplace.)

That’s impressive and a solid testament to the significance of application ecosystems for important SaaS firms.

But what’s even extra telling is that 31% of seed-phase SaaS startups now feature a public integration market way too. Almost 1 out 3 SaaS startups — which are specially strapped for time and means, forced to make very challenging decisions about what to prioritize — have picked to prioritize building the two integrations and a market to make it simple for customers to find and use them.

It is heartening to see martech buyers and sellers agree: integration is vital.

We still have additional to go on this journey of martech platforms and ecosystems. But as an market, at least’s we’re all marching in the identical direction with a much far more seamlessly and powerfully built-in future on the horizon ahead.