As marketers continue to optimize their martech stacks to fulfill more roles within B2B organizations, collaboration outside of marketing is becoming increasingly necessary for optimal martech spending. Research from the CMO Council showed that 75% of CMOs collaborate with CIOs regularly to analyze martech KPIs, which strengthens the relationship between marketing and IT while enhancing their martech stack’s effectiveness.
“Making MarTech Pay Off” explores the growing relationship between marketing and IT teams, and how CMOs and CIOs are collaborating to build stronger martech systems through optimal investments. The report also highlights how data governance processes have changed when analyzing martech performance and the strategies organizations are using for martech innovation.
One major takeaway from the report is that CMOs and CIOs are striving to become more data-driven when managing their martech stacks. The research showed that 80% of respondents use customer experiences, omnichannel engagement and customer satisfaction as standout KPIs for measuring martech performance, with an additional 60% measuring revenue, customer lifetime value and ROI. These datapoints provide CMOs and CIOs in “very effective” relationships with a steady stream of insights that allow for optimal martech investment.
Another area of interest was the increase in integration and alignment, as four out of 10 respondents claimed CMOs and CIOs that closely collaborated on martech usage had access to better data and more integrated core systems. This created greater internal alignment between marketing and IT, providing both teams with higher quality first-party data to inform their workflows.
“CMOs in very effective relationships with IT, who get the most out of martech, also have the largest martech stacks and spend the highest percentage of their marketing budget on martech,” said Donovan Neale-May, Executive Director of the CMO Council, in a statement. “These CMOs are more likely to be responsible for digital transformation, customer experience and revenue generation — the ‘big three’ — and play a larger role in the future of the company.”
Other key takeaways from the report include:
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79% of CMOs and CIOs in a “very effective” relationship are able to choose digital and E-commerce solutions that synergize with their organization’s tech stack;
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60% of CMOs in “very effective” relationships with IT created multi-year strategic plans for martech adoption and implementation;
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48% of CMOs and CIOs in “very effective” relationships report being in equal partnership when deciding on martech solutions;
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Only 23% of companies have “very effective” CMO-CIO working relationships.