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

My good friends at MarTech.org not too long ago launched their latest Martech Substitution Study 2022, exactly where entrepreneurs shared which apps they’ve changed more than the previous 18 months, what their primary motivation was in undertaking so, and what ended up their most vital variables in selecting the substitution answer.

Marketing automation (24%), CRM (23%), Web optimization (23%), electronic mail marketing and advertising (22%), and operate/project administration (19%) apps were being the most regularly changed.

As I highlighted in blue in the chart higher than, the #1 most commonly cited variable in deciding on their substitution option was integration capabilities/open up API — picked by 56% respondents, up 13% factors from the exact study in 2021.

It is a best 5 theme of this ten years in martech: platforms, networks & marketplaces.

Of training course, this isn’t to say that the other things — value, aid, protection, and so on. — weren’t important as well. But the issue that most entrepreneurs agreed on was integration. If it will not combine with the relaxation of the tech stack, all the things else is moot. It’s the tree that falls in the forest without any person close to to hear it.

The next most frequent variable was facts centralization/info capabilities (selected by 50% of respondents), which is closely 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 likely to be on the top rated of everyone’s minds in our tighter financial system. But to evaluate ROI, you need to have the information. And to get the knowledge, you have to have integrations. These three elements are bound together by atomic forces.

But what inspired marketers to look for out a alternative remedy in the 1st location?

When on the lookout to switch a commercial app (the study handles substitution of homegrown applications independently), the #1 commitment was much better capabilities (53%). Of class, this can make feeling. Marketers appear to martech to give them the abilities required to perform in frequently shifting and evolving markets. What you can do matters.

On the other hand, I would have anticipated the #2 commitment to be expense — trying to find an option solution to lower charges. That was the survey final result in 2021.

But in 2022, far better/easier integration was the next most common inspiration (24%, up 5% details from 2021) to look for a replacement application. In essence, a drive for greater integration activated 1 out of every 4 martech app substitution jobs.

That’s very exceptional.

I have stated this quite a few periods right before to martech product or service teams: the market is talking to you with a good booming voice in the sky, “Treat integration as a initially-course element!”

Progressively, the martech industry — and the SaaS universe additional broadly — have taken this to heart. A new exploration report from Pandium on the Point out of Integrations and APIs at 400 SaaS Companies demonstrates that 86% of the Best 100 SaaS providers in the world now have a community integration marketplace. (73% of them have an in-app marketplace.)

That is spectacular and a strong testomony to the value of app ecosystems for major SaaS providers.

But what’s even a lot more telling is that 31% of seed-phase SaaS startups now feature a general public integration marketplace also. Nearly 1 out 3 SaaS startups — which are especially strapped for time and resources, pressured to make pretty hard selections about what to prioritize — have chosen to prioritize building each integrations and a market to make it easy for prospects to find and use them.

It’s heartening to see martech buyers and sellers concur: integration is important.

We still have even further to go on this journey of martech platforms and ecosystems. But as an field, at least’s we’re all marching in the very same path with a a great deal more seamlessly and powerfully integrated foreseeable future on the horizon ahead.