Marketing Data Technology: Cutting Through the Complexity

Data and technology. Together, they’re upending the worlds of advertising and marketing. No longer just the province of the direct marketer (and recognized as the linchpin of the burgeoning “programmatic marketing” practice), consumer data is growing to support programs that span virtually all digital and traditional media. Likewise, a frenetic pace of new investment—978 deals were completed in the U.S. marketing technology sector in 2014, according to investment bank Petsky Prunier LLC, representing a total of $19.4 billion in aggregate value—is driving unprecedented innovation in the tools used to activate those precious information resources.

From afar, the new mandate to marketers is clear: Stay on top of this tide of technological change, or risk losing ground to more nimble competitors . . .