Digital transformation company, Squiz, reveals new research which proves marketers must speak the language of the boardroom if they are to demonstrate the value of martech to the bottom line.

For the 2017 State of Marketing Tech report, over 600 senior marketing professionals were surveyed globally to uncover their goals, challenges and digital vision.

The findings reveal that although 78 per cent of senior marketers feel confident in explaining the value of technology investments, they believe there is a disconnect with the rest of the boardroom. Marketers say they see 47 per cent of the c-suite outside of their department use some marketing technology in their roles, however they still do not believe that other functions understand martech’s potential impact on revenues in the way that they do.

Over half of global marketers (52 per cent) think that other C-level execs don’t understand marketing and only 35 per cent think that their CEO strongly realises the potential revenue uplift and saving of martech investment. It’s a similar story with the CIO; marketers think that just a third (33 per cent) understand the value of martech at a financial level.

Squiz’s research suggests that marketers still need to develop closer relationships with the CEO. Currently they are most closely aligned with the CTO (52 per cent) or CIO (47 per cent), but only 27 per cent say that their marketing team is working closely with the CEO. As a result, stakeholder buy in is still a challenge for 32 per cent of marketers and over a quarter (28 per cent) still don’t feel they are able to confidently set goals that the whole business can support.

97 per cent of global marketers believe that marketing technology has allowed the marketing department to become more strategic in its approach and 43 per cent say they’ve been able to develop more data-driven KPIs since investing in it.

John-Paul Syriatowicz, Group CEO of Squiz, comments: “Our research confirms the strengthening role of digital within the boardroom, with more departments on-boarding the latest in martech. There is now significant opportunity for marketers to ensure the value of this technology is being conveyed to key stakeholders. They also need to start leading by example, recognising their responsibility for using the technology to its full potential, and optimising its business impact.”

Last year there was increased investment in platforms such as CMS (83 per cent) and CRM (62 per cent), but this year 97 per cent of business have invested in some form of marketing technology in the past 12 months. Breaking this down, 60 per cent were adding to their existing stack, whilst 31 per cent didn’t have any in place last year. The fastest adoption this year was in Australia; 51 per cent invested in martech because they didn’t have any in place last year. Smaller proportion in the UK (26 per cent) and us (15 per cent) suggest that these marketers established martech in their organisations in previous years.

Marketers are investing in these products for numerous reasons. 62 per cent want to better understand customers, 37 per cent are doing it to remain competitive, 55 per cent want to be able to take a data-driven approach to marketing and 57 per cent need to automate processes and reduce time on admin.

Syriatowicz continues: “This increase in technology adoption is a real win for marketers, as their presence and influence among the C-suite grows. They now need to start speaking in the C-Suite’s language, and prioritise how to best communicate the benefits of martech for problem-solving, enabling more strategic business decisions, and driving growth across the entire organisation.”