What are your biggest opportunities & challenges in marketing tech for the next 12-24 months?
From an opportunities perspective, data-driven advertising is opening the door for marketers to better leverage their data assets throughout their organization to create consistent streams of communication with their customers across multiple channels. What was once the exclusive domain of direct, database and email marketing, is now being made possible through display, mobile, social, video and even out-of-home (OOH).
As for challenges, there are many, but probably the most pressing is data is often fragmented throughout the enterprise across multiple, and often disconnected, datamarts. In addition, communication strategies range from market to market and below the line is often removed from branding efforts.
What keeps your clients up at night?
One of the biggest worries many clients have is where is the data, how clean and hygienic is it, who else has access to it and am I using it properly?
What’s the hardest thing to educate clients about?
I would say the hardest thing to educate clients on is getting the stakeholders who are engaged with the client–being strategy, IT, the creative and media agencies–all aligned on how best to utilize it, as opposed to educating them on the platforms’ capabilities.
What are some unmet needs in the marketing technology landscape?
There are still some channels which aren’t fully accessible for data-driven marketing activities yet–TV being a great example, and it’s still early days with OOH. In addition, closing the identity gap between online and mobile personas still needs some work, but as more and more screens become addressable, we’ll see the promise of true customer lifecycle marketing becoming a reality.
What social network do you anticipate accelerating growth in the next year?
Facebook and their other properties–Instagram and WhatsApp. They’ve done a fantastic job of maintaining their growth globally. Obviously SnapChat, LinkedIn and Pinterest are continuing impressive growth trajectories as well.
–Jay Stevens recently joined Adform as the company’s first Chief Revenue Officer
