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

My pals at MarTech.org lately unveiled their most current Martech Substitute Survey 2022, where by entrepreneurs shared which apps they’ve changed over the past 18 months, what their most important commitment was in performing so, and what had been their most important factors in picking the alternative resolution.

Advertising automation (24%), CRM (23%), Seo (23%), electronic mail advertising and marketing (22%), and perform/venture administration (19%) applications have been the most often replaced.

As I highlighted in blue in the chart above, the #1 most generally cited component in deciding on their substitution option was integration capabilities/open up API — chosen by 56% respondents, up 13% factors from the similar survey in 2021.

It is a top rated 5 topic of this 10 years in martech: platforms, networks & marketplaces.

Of program, this is not to say that the other factors — price tag, aid, security, and many others. — weren’t crucial way too. But the factor that most marketers agreed on was integration. If it won’t integrate with the rest of the tech stack, almost everything else is moot. It’s the tree that falls in the forest with no anyone all over to listen to it.

The next most typical variable was details centralization/details abilities (picked out by 50% of respondents), which is carefully tied to integration. Soon after all, information is the foundational layer of integrations.

Tied in next also with 50% was “ability to measure ROI” — which is going to be on the leading of everyone’s minds in our tighter financial system. But to measure ROI, you have to have the knowledge. And to get the information, you will need integrations. These a few elements are certain jointly by atomic forces.

But what inspired entrepreneurs to find out a alternative resolution in the initially location?

When seeking to swap a professional application (the survey addresses substitution of homegrown apps individually), the #1 commitment was far better attributes (53%). Of class, this can make sense. Marketers glance to martech to give them the capabilities vital to perform in frequently shifting and evolving markets. What you can do matters.

Having said that, I would have anticipated the #2 inspiration to be price tag — trying to get an alternate solution to cut down expenses. That was the study consequence in 2021.

But in 2022, much better/easier integration was the next most prevalent enthusiasm (24%, up 5% details from 2021) to search for a replacement app. Essentially, a wish for far better integration triggered 1 out of just about every 4 martech application substitution tasks.

That’s very remarkable.

I have claimed this many times in advance of to martech products teams: the sector is talking to you with a excellent booming voice in the sky, “Treat integration as a first-course attribute!”

More and more, the martech sector — and the SaaS universe far more broadly — have taken this to heart. A new investigate report from Pandium on the State of Integrations and APIs at 400 SaaS Organizations displays that 86% of the Major 100 SaaS companies in the environment now have a community integration market. (73% of them have an in-app marketplace.)

That is impressive and a sturdy testomony to the worth of app ecosystems for big SaaS firms.

But what is even additional telling is that 31% of seed-stage SaaS startups now characteristic a general public integration market way too. Just about 1 out 3 SaaS startups — which are especially strapped for time and means, forced to make extremely difficult choices about what to prioritize — have selected to prioritize establishing both equally integrations and a marketplace to make it easy for customers to discover and use them.

It is heartening to see martech buyers and sellers concur: integration is essential.

We still have more to go on this journey of martech platforms and ecosystems. But as an market, at least’s we’re all marching in the very same route with a substantially a lot more seamlessly and powerfully built-in future on the horizon in advance.