WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

This report from leading global research and advisory firm, Forrester, identifies the 12 most significant customer journey analytics platform providers today, and reveals how each measures up based on 26 different evaluation criteria, to help you make the right choice for your organization. You'll get a complete overview of the current customer journey analytics market, including:

• The two primary journey analytics provider categories, visioning and orchestration, and four core capabilities: (1) data fusion, (2) journey design & planning, (3) journey testing & optimization, and (4) journey automation & orchestration
• The 2018 Forrester Wave Journey Visioning Platform rankings and scorecard
• A breakdown of each journey analytics provider’s offering, strengths, specialties, and customer base
• Key criteria that helps leaders stand out from the pack

If you’re new to this, a “marketing stack” is the collection of software that a marketing team uses to ply their trade. The Stackies is a fun awards program at the MarTech conference where we invite marketers to send in a single slide that illustrates their marketing stack in some conceptual way.

Top 20 new social media tools to try in 2018, including their prices, a quick walkthrough, and a review.

Nearly four of every 10 websites have seen a decrease in traffic over the past three years, according to a new Adobe Digital Insights report.

Gartner's 2015-2016 CMO Spend Survey shows that marketers are spending more on digital commerce. The survey also reveals marketing is expected to take more digital commerce responsibility. Marketing leaders connect programs and processes to the buying journey for digital commerce results.

Impacts

• Digital commerce spending has grown from 8% to 11% of the digital marketing budget — the biggest increase of any category — indicating further expansion of marketing's role in digital commerce.
• Forty percent of marketers rank digital commerce as one of the top areas where management's expectations of marketing have increased, highlighting the need to tie marketing to the customer buying journey.
• Sixty-four percent of marketers rank digital commerce as a top area for marketing technology investment, pointing to the importance of technology that links marketing and commerce systems and processes.

Recommendations

• Pivot from a marketing approach that focuses mainly on brand building, lead generation and customer engagement to take accountability for driving results through commerce transactions and lead conversion.
• Sharpen your data-driven marketing skills to determine where customers are in the buying journey. Design marketing programs that lead to conversion and measure the impact of marketing efforts.
• Integrate digital commerce into your marketing technology strategy by defining critical capabilities, such as segmentation and conversion analytics. Find providers that connect marketing to sales channels.