The 2017 MarTech Wish List: 5 CMOs name the marketing technology they want most

After asking CMOs to name their favorite martech from last year, we wanted to look toward the future and find out what CMOs want most when it comes to new marketing technology in 2017.

Mizzen+Main’s CMO, Jen Lavelle, said she’d like to see the same Instagram shopable ad options that are available to the bigger retailers like Target, while PepsiCo’s Seth Kaufman wants improved accountability from his brand’s media and data partners.

Kaufman wasn’t the only CMO to list more effective ways to show ROI. AppLovin CMO Katie Jansen says she wants 2017 to be a tipping point for the industry in terms of tracking every dollar spent. Peloton VP of Brand Marketing Carolyn Tisch Blodgett has her eye on customized messaging, while Olapic’s Rachel Meranus is focused on social video.

CMOs list their biggest martech wishes for 2017

Jen Lavelle, CMO, Mizzen+Main

Our biggest MarTech-related need or wish for 2017 is to gain a shopable Instagram. Bigger companies, like Target, have the capability right now and it allows them to post a photo and link product URLs.

It creates an amazing customer experience, and it’s something we hope to be able to offer in the near future. It’s an awesome way to let your customers buy something straight from Instagram without navigating away from the native application.

Any time you can cater to your audience and make the mobile-online shopping experience an easy one is a win.

Seth Kaufman, CMO, PepsiCo North America Beverages

A continued, sharpened focus on accountability from media and data partners. This means a vigilant emphasis on insights and measurement — innovative approaches that go beyond the industry standards, to show ROI and learnings.

I believe this is what the future of the industry may very well be and will take shape sooner rather than later. If we cannot prove that something works, it won’t have a place in the marketing mix of the future.

Katie Jansen, CMO, AppLovin

While the industry has been trending toward trackable methods for some time now, my hope is that 2017 finally marks a tipping point where every dollar spent on direct marketing goes toward trackable methods.

More importantly, this year I hope that all marketers think about ROI first. This approach is beneficial for both sides of the ecosystem: brands get value from their investment in marketing, thereby enabling bigger budgets and more money that they can spend with ad networks.

Carolyn Tisch Blodgett, VP of Brand Marketing, Peloton

Our biggest marketing opportunity is to grow awareness and consideration of the Peloton experience. Therefore, our biggest MarTech need for 2017 is a unified data platform that can manage both customers in our CRM as well as non-CRM audiences that we can reach (i.e., retargeting cookies, Facebook custom audiences, etc.).

Such a platform will enable us to manage and trigger customized messages to audiences at different stages of the purchasing and customer life cycle.

Rachel Meranus, CMO, Olapic

In 2017, we hope to see the continued growth of social video.

In 2016, video emerged as a powerful and engaging feature of social networking, evident through the increasing popularity of Snapchat, Facebook Live and beyond. However, brand marketers continue to struggle with the complexities of video and how to produce content in a fast and affordable way. Repurposing content from other outlets like television is ultimately not as effective when it comes to social channels.

In 2017, I believe brands will continue to explore new ways of addressing social video at scale in a way that better resonates with consumers.