Digital Marketing Technology/Tools Landscape

With multiple functional and technology areas gaining prominence to cater to upcoming digital marketing activities, a host of vendors have emerged which provide services across each of the point areas, as discussed in the previous section. To make sense of the digital tools landscape, Lumapartners (a strategic media, marketing, and technology advisory) has launched multiple infographics by the name Lumascapes which aim to provide a well-classified view of key emerging tools/technology vendors presently in the advertising and marketing sectors. Let us look at one of the most prominent of Lumascapes which lists key marketing technology areas and top tools across each of them.

Figure 10.7 showcases tools across the ‘Marketing Technology’ sector focusing specifically on sales and marketing and website-related areas.

The main areas included in each of the key sectors in the infographic include:

• Sales and marketing sector: Marketing Modeling; Integrated Marketing Management; Social Marketing Management; E-mail Optimization; E-mail Service Providers; Marketing Automation; Database Marketing; Visualization; DMPs; Marketing Data; and Data Warehouses
• Website ‘personalization and optimization’ sub-sector: SEO Platforms/Tools; Real-time Message/Offers; Landing Pages; AB/MV Testing; and Recommendation Systems.
• Website ‘e-commerce technology’ sub-sector: Platform/Storefront; Social Referral; Merchandising; Payments; and M-commerce
• Website ‘creation and management’ sub-sector: WCM (Content Management Systems); Web Analytics; DAM (Digital Asset Manafement); Online Video Players; Tag Management; Site Performance; Feedback/Surveys; Community; Social Content/Forums; Mobile Web; Social Login/Sharing; Translation; and Gamification.

Apart from Lumascape, Scott Brinker (Co-founder and CTO at ion interactive, inc.) releases an yearly infographic on Chiefmartec.com (his prominent Chief Marketing Technologist Blog).

Figure 10.8 showcases the 2014 edition of this, and represents a whopping 947 different companies that provide software for marketers, organized into 43 categories across 6 major classes.. Scott Brinker has divided the marketing technology landscape into categories like marketing experiences, marketing operations, middleware, backone platforms, infrastructure, with the largest numer of tools listed across sub-categories like key marketing, sales, operations, analytics, infrastructure, etc.