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

My close friends at MarTech.org not long ago introduced their most up-to-date Martech Replacement Study 2022, where by entrepreneurs shared which apps they’ve changed more than the earlier 18 months, what their key determination was in performing so, and what had been their most essential things in deciding on the substitute solution.

Internet marketing automation (24%), CRM (23%), Search engine optimization (23%), e mail internet marketing (22%), and do the job/challenge administration (19%) apps have been the most frequently replaced.

As I highlighted in blue in the chart above, the #1 most commonly cited issue in choosing their substitution option was integration abilities/open API — picked by 56% respondents, up 13% points from the exact same study in 2021.

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

Of training course, this isn’t to say that the other factors — price, guidance, stability, etcetera. — weren’t significant much too. But the variable that most marketers agreed on was integration. If it won’t combine with the relaxation of the tech stack, everything else is moot. It is the tree that falls in the forest without anybody all around to listen to it.

The second most prevalent element was knowledge centralization/knowledge capabilities (picked by 50% of respondents), which is closely tied to integration. Right after all, details is the foundational layer of integrations.

Tied in 2nd also with 50% was “ability to measure ROI” — which is likely to be on the leading of everyone’s minds in our tighter economic system. But to measure ROI, you need the knowledge. And to get the knowledge, you have to have integrations. These a few components are bound alongside one another by atomic forces.

But what motivated marketers to search for out a alternative alternative in the initially position?

When wanting to swap a commercial app (the study addresses alternative of homegrown applications separately), the #1 motivation was superior attributes (53%). Of study course, this can make perception. Entrepreneurs glimpse to martech to give them the capabilities required to execute in frequently shifting and evolving markets. What you can do matters.

However, I would have predicted the #2 determination to be cost — searching for an choice alternative to lessen fees. That was the study final result in 2021.

But in 2022, superior/easier integration was the 2nd most prevalent drive (24%, up 5% details from 2021) to seek out a substitute app. Fundamentally, a desire for far better integration triggered 1 out of every single 4 martech app alternative tasks.

That’s quite amazing.

I have reported this many periods right before to martech products teams: the marketplace is talking to you with a terrific booming voice in the sky, “Treat integration as a very first-class feature!”

Ever more, the martech field — and the SaaS universe a lot more broadly — have taken this to coronary heart. A new analysis report from Pandium on the State of Integrations and APIs at 400 SaaS Organizations reveals that 86% of the Top 100 SaaS organizations in the earth now have a community integration market. (73% of them have an in-application marketplace.)

That’s spectacular and a strong testomony to the value of application ecosystems for significant SaaS organizations.

But what’s even additional telling is that 31% of seed-stage SaaS startups now element a general public integration marketplace far too. Just about 1 out 3 SaaS startups — which are specifically strapped for time and resources, forced to make extremely difficult choices about what to prioritize — have selected to prioritize creating each integrations and a marketplace to make it uncomplicated for customers to find out and use them.

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

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