As COVID-19 relentlessly impacts organizations and consumers into the second half of 2020, marketers are continuing to evolve how they deliver consumer experiences. And, as consumers become increasingly digital and demand timelier and more relevant brand interactions, the need for modern marketing technology powered by first-party data has grown.
A modern platform allows brands to adjust to the speed of today’s business, meet consumers’ ever-changing demands, as well as fail fast to learn and optimize even faster.
What concepts fuel the modern platform?
Our research found that only 26 percent of marketers say they have a distributed streaming platform to leverage real-time data throughout the enterprise, yet 90 percent acknowledge its importance in delivering the customer experience.
The Idea of the platform-first mentality
Our survey this quarter reflects a change in marketer purchase behavior with most now buying best-of-breed products and considering custom builds rather than off-the-shelf technology. As marketers continue buying and integrating platforms within their customized marketing technology stack, we are advising customers to follow a “platform-first,” not “platform-only” approach.
Our findings show that marketers are generally happy with their platforms, but many marketers may not be using the platforms to the platforms’ full potential. Also, most marketers realize the significance of real-time data, but fewer put it into practice today.
More specifically, respondents were asked to rate their platform’s ROI delivery on a scale of one to five, with 40 percent choosing four and another 38 percent choosing five. As we investigate these numbers further, we start to see a disconnect with marketers who are happy with their purchases but may not be getting everything out of their current platforms.
Want to learn more? Download Merkle’s new Q3 2020 Customer Engagement Report here.
