• by Tyler Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_tyler, March 6, 2015

While this blog space is typically dedicated to ad technology -- the acronym soup of programmatic’s RTB, DSP, SSP and more -- coexistent (and often overlapping) is the world of marketing technology.

eMarketer has released a new report focused on the marketing technology space and the nine marketing tech trends of 2015. The report is based on over 20 interviews with marketing professionals and analysis of third-party data collected from over 30 sources, per eMarketer.

Several of the trends apply to the programmatic ad world as well.

“Technologies to create, manage and measure marketing and advertising have become essential tools to reach and engage increasingly connected audiences,” writes eMarketer in its executive summary of the report. “As a result, in addition to being brand builders and message crafters, modern marketers now also wear the hat of technologist.”

eMarketer defines marketing technology as “software and services used to support the management and measurement of marketing and advertising.”

Importantly, eMarketer found that there is skepticism that “one provider can do it all.” This is seen in the programmatic world as well, as media companies are looking to build mega-platforms that can seemly do it all. To name a few: AOL is expected to role out its “One” platform in the coming months, and Nielsen's recent acquisition of eXelate signals the convergence of digital and traditional, and the tech platforms themselves are trying to position themselves as jacks-of-all-trades

Perhaps eMarketer’s report that this breeds skepticism will cause some changes in how platforms pitch themselves. The skepticism may also be a reason why the average “ad tech stack” consists of over a dozen different technologies.

Among eMarketer’s other marketing tech trends of 2015: a “vast and growing landscape” of vendors, marketers smarting up about how they apply the technology, CMOs and CIOs working together more often, and brands turning to their agencies for tech-driven needs.

“A level of expertise than an agency can bring is hard to maintain in-house or can’t be automated for,” Dave Corchado, chief technology officer at digital agency iCrossing is quoted as saying in the report.

The “in-house” trend has been seen in the programmatic ad world as well, and similar sentiments -- that it’s been difficult for some brands to fully take technology in-house because they lack the resources needed to maintain the “stack” -- have been shared.

If eMarketer highlights brands turning to agencies for (marketing) tech-driven needs in 2015, does that mean we could begin to see the same thing for programmatic tech, signaling a reversal of the "in-house" trend that was so prevalent just last year?