Marketing leaders should always be looking to the latest technology to help drive their campaigns, boost productivity and increase revenue. And there are a huge variety of tools to choose from. Indeed, marketing technology, or MarTech, is big business. It's estimated that $148 billion (£117 billion) is set to be invested in these products globally this year - so make sure you're spending wisely.

If you don't want to get left behind, it's vital you're up-to-date with the latest innovations and developments in this space. While a lot of the talk this year has been dominated by AI, there's much more to MarTech than this. Therefore, here are a few of the other key trends and innovations that should be on your radar in 2024.

Meeting the demand for data-driven marketing

Data-driven marketing is a term you're likely to have heard a lot recently. In practice, this means using in-depth analytics to help guide strategy. Done right, this can predict demand, find relevant audiences and deliver better personalisation by enabling improved decision-making.

However, managing this data will be a real challenge for many businesses. As a result, any tools that can help organise and handle data - from acquisition and cleansing through to large-scale analytics - should be top of the list for investment. Adopting the right software tools can help with everything from PPC planning to search engine optimisation and email marketing.

What can automation offer?

Automation tools are another key area of MarTech that will help define the best-performing brands in 2024 and beyond. These will often go hand-in-hand with AI to help reduce the amount of manual intervention required to adjust campaigns, reach out to the right audiences and cut down on tedious, repetitive tasks.

Marketing automation platforms (MAPs) help save time and money, allowing resource-poor B2B marketers to focus their energy elsewhere. In the last couple of years, the capabilities of these tools have expanded greatly, allowing marketing professionals to do much more with much less.

Tools to tackle privacy demands

Another key trend that B2B marketers will have to react to is a growing focus on privacy. This comes in a number of forms, from tougher regulations on how data may be used to the prospect of a cookieless future making it difficult to track and retarget users. This can mean it is much harder for professionals to share information and deliver personalised messaging.

However, there are solutions available to help with this. Tools such as consent management platforms, Google's Consent Mode and server-side tagging can all help maintain compliance and provide effective results while respecting user privacy.

Integrating tech throughout the department

Regardless of which MarTech tools B2B firms turn to in order to meet these challenges, they will have to work seamlessly together - and this is no easy task. Therefore, a top priority for any leader will be to ensure their chosen solutions can integrate effectively across the marketing IT stack.

This will include CRMs, SEO tools, email marketing services, ad planning solutions and many more. The use of services such as APIs to create bridges between these solutions plays a vital role in making it easy to exchange information, track the customer journey and deliver the seamless omnichannel experience that users today expect.

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If you want to learn more about the latest trends in MarTech and how they can transform your marketing activities as a leader, our latest event, The Marketing Leaders Summit, happening on 5th September in central London is the perfect opportunity to hear from influential speakers, network with other marketing leaders and take away key learnings.