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

My buddies at MarTech.org not long ago produced their hottest Martech Substitution Survey 2022, in which marketers shared which applications they’ve replaced over the previous 18 months, what their key commitment was in accomplishing so, and what were their most important components in picking the alternative answer.

Marketing automation (24%), CRM (23%), Web optimization (23%), electronic mail advertising (22%), and do the job/task administration (19%) applications ended up the most frequently changed.

As I highlighted in blue in the chart earlier mentioned, the #1 most normally cited element in deciding upon their substitute remedy was integration capabilities/open API — selected by 56% respondents, up 13% factors from the identical study in 2021.

It is a leading 5 concept of this decade in martech: platforms, networks & marketplaces.

Of class, this is not to say that the other components — value, support, security, etcetera. — weren’t critical as well. But the component that most entrepreneurs agreed on was integration. If it won’t integrate with the rest of the tech stack, every thing else is moot. It’s the tree that falls in the forest without everyone all around to listen to it.

The second most frequent variable was knowledge centralization/data abilities (picked by 50% of respondents), which is carefully tied to integration. Following all, details is the foundational layer of integrations.

Tied in 2nd also with 50% was “ability to evaluate ROI” — which is going to be on the top rated of everyone’s minds in our tighter economic system. But to measure ROI, you require the information. And to get the knowledge, you need to have integrations. These three variables are bound jointly by atomic forces.

But what enthusiastic entrepreneurs to find out a substitute answer in the very first area?

When seeking to swap a professional app (the study covers substitute of homegrown applications independently), the #1 motivation was better functions (53%). Of system, this tends to make feeling. Marketers look to martech to give them the abilities essential to complete in continually shifting and evolving markets. What you can do matters.

Nonetheless, I would have envisioned the #2 commitment to be value — searching for an different resolution to reduce charges. That was the survey result in 2021.

But in 2022, better/much easier integration was the second most prevalent motivation (24%, up 5% points from 2021) to look for a alternative application. Essentially, a need for improved integration activated 1 out of every single 4 martech app substitution assignments.

Which is pretty amazing.

I’ve said this a lot of situations in advance of to martech item teams: the market place is talking to you with a terrific booming voice in the sky, “Treat integration as a 1st-class element!”

Significantly, the martech industry — and the SaaS universe additional broadly — have taken this to coronary heart. A new investigation report from Pandium on the Condition of Integrations and APIs at 400 SaaS Businesses shows that 86% of the Leading 100 SaaS businesses in the environment now have a public integration marketplace. (73% of them have an in-application market.)

That’s outstanding and a solid testament to the value of application ecosystems for important SaaS corporations.

But what is even more telling is that 31% of seed-phase SaaS startups now aspect a general public integration marketplace far too. Virtually 1 out 3 SaaS startups — which are specially strapped for time and assets, compelled to make pretty really hard decisions about what to prioritize — have picked out to prioritize producing both equally integrations and a market to make it simple for consumers to learn and use them.

It’s heartening to see martech potential buyers and sellers agree: integration is critical.

We however have even more to go on this journey of martech platforms and ecosystems. But as an industry, at least’s we’re all marching in the exact route with a much much more seamlessly and powerfully built-in future on the horizon forward.