Martech & Adtech Convergence is a Reality. It’s Just Not What You Thought

Like jocks and nerds in classic 80’s movies, adtech and martech share space in the marketing ecosystem, but they look, act and behave very differently. With martech and adtech convergence a hot talking point in the industry today, we examine what convergence of these technologies really looks like. The answer may surprise you according to Michele Szabocsik, VP of Marketing, BlueConic

Who doesn’t love classic teen movies like Grease, The Breakfast Club, 10 Things I Hate About You, and She’s All That? They share a common theme (or common stereotype) that seems to resonate with most people. Jocks vs. nerds.

Despite all the teen angst stemming from the pressure to define yourself as one or the other, there’s always a storyline about how a jock tries to be more like a nerd, and vice versa.

It’s not all that different in the world of marketers and advertisers. Advertising is big, it’s loud, and it draws the attention of new customers. But for all that it offers, it often lacks in transparency, accountability, and precision. On the other hand, while marketers may not have the scale of big, splashy ad campaigns, they make up for it in their ability to activate more personalized experiences thanks to their depth of customer knowledge. Thus, the technologies that have sprung up to enable these two sides have followed suit.

Martech and Adtech Are Built for Different Purposes

The truth is martech and adtech Opens a new window vendors have been trying to behave more like each other for a while now, but they haven’t quite succeeded. That’s because martech and adtech are purpose-built for, well, different purposes. In other words, while we demand a martech and adtech convergence, we are asking two sets of existing technologies to do things that they were not designed to do.

Instead, let’s take a look at the specific capabilities that we want each technology to learn from the other. Marketers want the scale and scope of adtech in their martech solutions. And advertisers want the transparency and data granularity of martechOpens a new window  in their Opens a new window adtechOpens a new window solutionsOpens a new window . So the point of convergence is less about two existing technologies merging together, and more about specific capabilities coming together to create something new that helps brands tap into their depth of customer data to activate scalable, but, also personalized experiences across channels and devices, starting from that first point of engagement all that way through conversion and adoption.

Re-imagining Convergence: Beyond Acquisitions and Integrations

As an industry, we need to consider the possibility that martech and adtech may never truly converge in the manner that some have predicted in the last two years. This may be disappointing to the analysts and pundits that have long speculated about the acquisition – or integration-based convergence where two existing technologies fuse together. But, we do not have to abandon the goals that convergence represents. We just need to redefine what convergence will look like in our industry. For example, some marketers are assembling their own tech stacks to achieve the goal of transparency and data granularity at scale to drive profitable, high-value customer experiences across all platforms. 

Through this new perspective, we see adtech and martech convergence is already happening. Instead of convergence through integration, the convergence we need is coming from new technology advancements that provide a central command center for unifying the data that fuels your entire stack.

In this way, customer data platformsOpens a new window , (CDPs) represent the first real point of convergence between martech and adtech. CDPs include several capabilities that can be found in other disparate technologies, but offer them in a single platform. By integrating with your entire ecosystem, a true CDP liberates your data, so you, as a marketer, don’t have to sacrifice data integrity, control, or scale to activate your most valuable marketing asset – your first party customer data.

In the beginning of the article, I outlined marketers’ goals for convergence – extending the distinct benefits of both martech and adtech to the management of the total customer experience. Our misstep as an industry was expecting convergence to be solved through existing vendor consolidation, rather than innovation. Convergence is not the adaptation of existing technologies; it is the emergence of new technology.