Brands benefit from directly managing marketing technology

NEW YORK, USA: A new commissioned study by Forrester Consulting on behalf of AudienceScience finds that brands benefit from managing marketing technology directly rather than through media budgets and agency fees.

The research reveals that marketers benefit significantly from adopting enterprise-grade vendor selection and management methods that their IT organizations already have in place. The study found that a cross-department, internally driven vendor selection process creates better alignment between vendor capabilities and technology requirements.

This results in less risk, fewer technology integration issues and significantly lower technology costs. In addition, the study reveals that 54 percent of marketing and IT leaders prefer direct license-fee vendor relationships while none favor burying technology costs in media fees.

Many marketers traditionally have outsourced technology decision-making and management to agencies, bypassing key internal stakeholders in IT, procurement, finance and legal. However, the study found that leading marketing executives are increasingly taking back control of technology decision-making, with a majority of senior marketing executives interviewed preferring direct licensed software relationships with marketing technology vendors.

Likewise, the study found that, when making technology decisions, marketers place higher levels of trust in internal enterprise stakeholders like IT (50 percent) and procurement than in agencies. As noted by one marketing executive interviewed for the study, "More parts of the organization have to be involved in more complex purchases. Lining up the internal organizations...and getting over the politics...are the hard parts."