Cost-conscious marketers are paying close attention to price when they’re considering replacement applications for their martech stack, according to the 2024 MarTech Replacement Survey.
Sixty-one percent of marketers said cost was the most important factor when evaluating replacement applications, up from 37% in the 2023 MarTech Replacement Survey.
Features lead marketers to look for replacements
While cost is important for replacement applications, the survey found it’s features that are most likely to send marketers and marketing operations professionals looking for a replacement in the first place.
Features lead marketers to look for replacements for both homegrown applications, where 48% of respondents cited better features from SaaS software, and for commercial applications, where 36% cited better features.
As for costs, 7% of respondents who replaced homegrown applications said they did it to reduce expenses, while 9% said the homegrown application was too expensive to maintain. Those marketers replacing commercial martech applications were more likely to cite costs. Nearly one-quarter (23%) said they replaced their commercial application to reduce expenses.
Dig deeper: Download the 2024 MarTech Replacement Survey.
Marketing automation is the most replaced martech application
For the fifth year in a row, the MarTech Replacement Survey found marketing automation platforms (MAPs) were the most-replaced application in the martech stack. The percentage of respondents replacing marketing automation platforms in the past year rose from 24% in the 2023 survey to 31% in 2024. Marketing automation was followed in the 2024 survey by email distribution software, CRM and SEO tools
The lifespan of martech apps is 3-5 years
The 2024 MarTech Replacement Survey found three to five years appears to be the sweet spot for martech replacement. Nearly two-thirds of the martech applications replaced by respondents to this year’s survey were in use for five years or less. Forty-three percent were in use for three to five years.
Marketing management champions most martech replacements
While the management of the applications the martech stack can fall on marketing, marketing operations or IT, spending on the size of the organizations and the resources available, the 2024 MarTech Replacement Survey found marketing management (37%) and executive management (26%) were the most common champions of martech replacements. IT team members championed only 8% of martech replacements.
The 2024 MarTech Replacement Survey is based on a survey of 496 initial respondents. Questions about the replacements are based on the 65% of respondents who said they replaced a martech solution in the past year. More than half (58%) of the respondents said they worked in B2B, while nearly one-quarter (24%) said they sold to both businesses and consumers.
Download the 2024 MarTech Replacement Survey report (no registration required).
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