Since last year, MarTech (Marketing Technology) companies in the advertising and marketing industry have become the darlings of the primary and secondary markets.
According to the "2020 China Marketing Technology Industry Research Report" by Feifan, the total investment and financing scale of the MarTech industry in 2020 reached 12.99 billion yuan, an increase of 4.3% year-on-year, and the number of financings totaled 130, an increase of 16.2% year-on-year. As of September 2021, a total of 25 marketing technology companies have received more than 100 million yuan in financing, with a cumulative amount exceeding 5.2 billion.
Leading players in several vertical fields have also accelerated: At the beginning of this year, Pacific Alliance Investment (PAG) invested an olive branch in Mobvista; in April, Mobvista announced the acquisition of Recloud Data; in May, AppLovin successfully sprinted into the US stock market.
However, what was unexpected is that the MarTech industry seems to have ushered in a "cold current" before it really heats up.
China is paying more attention to data privacy, and relevant policies have been released one after another, making it more difficult for MarTech companies to obtain data. E-commerce platforms led by Alibaba and Douyin announced that in order to protect user privacy and security, they will desensitize user mobile phone numbers. At that time, merchants will not be able to directly obtain private information such as user mobile phone numbers. The industry has taken a turn for the worse. According to Morketing, some investors have indicated that they will no longer consider MarTech companies in the near future.
It has to be said that the MarTech industry seems to have ushered in the days of ice and fire. Haven't been in the tuyere for a long time, are MarTech companies about to step out of the circle of attention?
1. From "favored" to "favored"?
Having become the darling of the marketing industry in just a few years, MarTech companies have naturally caught up with the "fast train" of changes in the industry and the general environment.
Specifically, the activity of MarTech companies is mainly due to the following two points.
First, enterprises have entered the era of digital transformation, which has given a boost to the rapid development of MarTech. According to data from the China Business Industry Research Institute, my country's digital economy will account for nearly 40% of GDP in 2020, breaking through the 40 trillion yuan mark as a whole, and it is expected to further increase to 4.756 billion yuan in 2021.
Under the tide, more and more enterprises and industries are looking forward to the optimization and innovation brought by digitalization. Marketing is a key part of telemarketing list enterprise development. Therefore, MarTech, which can use a series of new technologies such as big data and AI to improve ROI, is bound to become a rigid demand and develop rapidly.
Brand merchants are also fully aware of this. According to iResearch's survey results, about 60% of brand owners will increase their investment in marketing technology as a future marketing plan, which also promotes brand owners' demand for MarTech services and products. The continuous advancement of digital transformation on the demand side of enterprises and the increased investment in MarTech, at the same time, consolidate and enhance the foundation and telemarketing list demand of the demand side of enterprises to realize MarTech services, and will drive the continuous enhancement of the profitability of MarTech service providers in my country.
Second, traffic is getting more and more expensive, making MarTech an inevitable choice for brands to accelerate marketing and improve results.
The depletion of the Internet demographic dividend has led to a gradual shift in market demand from the original focus on advertising to a full-ecological marketing operation. AdTech is no longer enough, so the proportion of MarTech in the total marketing has increased year by year, and MarTech has also been promoted to a high-growth market. Gartner's "CMO Spend Survey" report pointed out that the highest proportion of spending on technology in marketing budgets reached 26.2%, and there is a trend of continued increase.