The 7 champions of MarTech in 2024

At the top of the podium, we find unsurprisingly the marketer. Every year, marketing professionals face constant challenges, whether it's budgets, new technologies, or limited resources. Yet, with agility and determination, you adapt and do your job every day to improve customer relationships.

Seeing you transform your universe each year for budgetary, technological, or resource reasons, and despite everything, staying there and doing your job every morning, commands respect. That's why we award each and every one of you a gold medal!

At Actito, we are committed to understanding your challenges and supporting you daily in your endeavors. Our mission is to provide you with the tools and expertise necessary to excel in your profession and create memorable customer experiences. Your success is our greatest pride and our reason for being.

In second place, we find first-party data or proprietary data. A crucial issue since 2024 will be marked by the "cookie apocalypse," in other words, the gradual disappearance of third-party cookies. Consequence: it will be increasingly difficult for brands to precisely target their audiences.

The solution? Reinvest in CRM and first-party data acquisition. First-party data is the data you own and comes directly from the consumer. It's the data they give you, that they share with you to do something with it. The only solution is to reinvest in CRM and data acquisition. I'm thinking in particular of Qualifio, a sister company of the QNTM group specializing in data collection.

On the third step of the podium, we find channels. A topic that has been somewhat overshadowed in recent years by themes such as data or CDP (Customer Data Platform). However, delivering the message to the consumer remains more essential than ever. If we don't deliver the message, everything we did before is strictly useless. We need to reinvest in channels.

In short, channels remain essential in customer relationships.

The fourth trend I identified: SwaS, for "Software with a Service." Or how to rethink the relationship between technology and service. SaaS is a thing of the past. SwaS is modern, it's software with service.

Observation: while MarTech solutions continue to gain in complexity and functionality, companies struggle to keep up in terms of skills and resources. We don't have the talent to do it. Hence the emergence of a new type of AI that I call "agentic AI," which will support marketers by automating certain time-consuming tasks. Get ready to work with a marketing robot in the coming years!

Generative AI, "the elephant in the room" that everyone is talking about… but which still raises many questions. Despite the 3,000 AI solutions that have appeared in one year, concrete and mature applications remain limited.

Several obstacles explain this situation: cultural barriers (lack of knowledge on the subject), legal (GDPR), but also doubts about the ability of AI to produce truly personalized and relevant content. We've seen a lot of images that make you nauseous, a lot of texts that don't make much sense… We're in a bit of a mixed situation. But I am convinced that generative AI will gain maturity within a few years.

The penultimate trend in my ranking: composable, which refers to the notion of the MarTech "stack," in other words, all the solutions that make up a company's ecosystem. A subject that has evolved a lot in recent years.

Before, there were two worlds: the "best-of-suite," with a single solution supposed to do everything, and the "best-of-breed," with specialized solutions that each respond to a specific need. Today, we've moved on to "best-of-both," the best of both worlds.

In concrete terms, this means that 80% of companies no longer hesitate to assemble technological building blocks from different universes, for reasons of cost, efficiency, or simplicity of use. The status quo is no longer possible, we must optimize our stack. A trend that will be confirmed in the coming years.

Last but not least trend: the MarTech market as a whole, which continues to grow at a frantic pace. With 14,000 solutions identified in 2024 (compared to 11,000 in 2023), an increase of 30% in one year, it is indeed difficult to miss the phenomenon.

A market characterized by a double movement: atomization, with many small players positioned on micro-issues, but also consolidation around large platforms and their ecosystems. As a result, MarTech now accounts for 30% of companies' marketing budgets… and this is just the beginning! Eventually, marketing will become a component of MarTech, not the other way around.

In conclusion, I want to reaffirm Actito's commitment to being the trusted partner of marketers in the face of these profound changes. Our commitment is to provide you with an innovative platform, expert advice, and personalized support to help you make the most of the opportunities offered by MarTech.

Together, let's continue to push the boundaries of marketing and create ever more relevant and engaging customer experiences. The challenges are many, but I am convinced that with the right dose of creativity, technology, and humanity, we have all the assets to succeed.

Thank you for your trust and loyalty. The Actito adventure is just beginning and it is with you that we want to write the next chapters of this exciting story. Let's get started now to put these trends into practice and prepare the future of marketing!