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

My friends at MarTech.org lately unveiled their most up-to-date Martech Alternative Survey 2022, where by marketers shared which applications they’ve replaced over the past 18 months, what their most important determination was in executing so, and what were being their most essential components in selecting the alternative resolution.

Marketing and advertising automation (24%), CRM (23%), Search engine optimisation (23%), e mail marketing (22%), and do the job/job administration (19%) apps were the most routinely changed.

As I highlighted in blue in the chart over, the #1 most typically cited element in selecting their substitution solution was integration capabilities/open up API — picked by 56% respondents, up 13% points from the exact survey in 2021.

It’s a prime 5 concept of this decade in martech: platforms, networks & marketplaces.

Of program, this is not to say that the other components — price tag, assistance, protection, etc. — weren’t essential far too. But the issue that most marketers agreed on was integration. If it won’t integrate with the relaxation of the tech stack, everything else is moot. It’s the tree that falls in the forest without having anybody about to listen to it.

The 2nd most typical aspect was information centralization/info abilities (preferred by 50% of respondents), which is closely tied to integration. Right after all, knowledge is the foundational layer of integrations.

Tied in second also with 50% was “ability to evaluate ROI” — which is likely to be on the prime of everyone’s minds in our tighter overall economy. But to evaluate ROI, you want the data. And to get the details, you need to have integrations. These a few variables are certain alongside one another by atomic forces.

But what motivated entrepreneurs to request out a substitution resolution in the 1st area?

When on the lookout to substitute a industrial app (the study addresses replacement of homegrown apps individually), the #1 motivation was far better features (53%). Of training course, this will make sense. Entrepreneurs look to martech to give them the abilities necessary to complete in constantly shifting and evolving marketplaces. What you can do issues.

On the other hand, I would have envisioned the #2 enthusiasm to be cost — trying to get an alternative alternative to reduce expenditures. That was the study end result in 2021.

But in 2022, much better/much easier integration was the second most common enthusiasm (24%, up 5% factors from 2021) to request a replacement app. Essentially, a desire for better integration brought on 1 out of each 4 martech application alternative tasks.

That’s very impressive.

I’ve stated this many situations prior to to martech merchandise teams: the market place is talking to you with a excellent booming voice in the sky, “Treat integration as a first-course aspect!”

Progressively, the martech business — and the SaaS universe additional broadly — have taken this to heart. A new research report from Pandium on the Condition of Integrations and APIs at 400 SaaS Corporations shows that 86% of the Top 100 SaaS corporations in the environment now have a public integration market. (73% of them have an in-app market.)

Which is amazing and a robust testament to the great importance of app ecosystems for key SaaS corporations.

But what’s even much more telling is that 31% of seed-stage SaaS startups now feature a general public integration marketplace much too. Almost 1 out 3 SaaS startups — which are specially strapped for time and sources, compelled to make really really hard decisions about what to prioritize — have preferred to prioritize producing both of those integrations and a market to make it quick for clients to explore and use them.

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

We continue to have more to go on this journey of martech platforms and ecosystems. But as an marketplace, at least’s we’re all marching in the identical route with a much a lot more seamlessly and powerfully built-in potential on the horizon forward.