What is Marketing Technology?

So what is Marketing Technology?

I certainly talk about a lot it but frankly I’m hard pressed to define it. Let’s look at some of the groundwork that’s been laid.

Mr. Chief Marketing Technologist – Scott Brinker

Scott Brinker does yeomen work writing about the role of a marketing technologist.  As reported Scott says a Marketing Technologist is:

“… someone who has a hybrid between business and technology, a strong background in engineering and IT, is an early adopter of technology, but someone who also understands the pragmatic realities of scaling technology. But most importantly, someone who brings those skills and combines them with a deep love and passion for the marketing mix. This is a technologist that reports to the CMO, not the CIO.”

Marketing Technology Consultant – Douglass Karr

Douglas Karr’s Marketing Technology Blog provides insight into the role on posts daily on the topics below.  The list below provides insight to what Marketing Technology consists of.

Practitioner – John Refford

I myself have wrote on the roles and responsibilities of a Marketing Technologist focusing on:

  • Strategist – you will frequently be asked to analyze situations, evaluate options, and recommend strategy & tactics
  • Change Agent – you may find yourself playing the role of a change agent where you have the opportunity to introduce new marketing technology and techniques
  • Consultant – you may be asked advise ebusiness teams on how to integrate new “Web 2.0″ digital techniques to the traditional websites
  • Project Manager – given your unique position between IT & Marketing, you may be asked to manage several projects

The Social Crowd

In working to craft a definition I reached out to a few LinkedIn groups (here and here) and asked how practitioners define “Marketing Technology”.

Here are the definitions offered:

  • Nigel Cliffe: The action of combining technology with business processes to promote the selling of products or services.
  • Nazli Yuzak: A series of technologies that enables marketers to execute higher quality integrated marketing campaigns while optimizing resources and maximizing ROI.
  • Eric Schmidt: At the corner of IT and Marketing you find the Marketing Technologist. A marketer has a message, an IT developer has a system, the MT uses a specific system for a specific message.
  • @BrianMakas: Bi-lingual marketer/techie that often offers solutions well before need for tech even identified.


 Here’s my draft definition of Marketing Technology:

Applied information technology sciences to the benefit sales and marketing efforts associated with advancing organizational goals. Contrasted with traditional marketing consisting of print, display, tv advertising and public relations analog techniques.

I’m intrigued that the category continues to be defined by the people as much as by the content.  Because of this fluidity, I’m really intrigued to see if we can settle on a common definition.

How do you define Marketing Technology?