3 Interesting MarTech Trends Heading into 2024

Author

Ewen Finser
December 28, 2023

Sponsored by

As we head into 2024, I’m looking at MarTech trends that appear to be spiking.

The idea is that I can learn something from these early indicators and see if there’s an opportunity for our businesses to benefit.

This is a segment I may continue to do bi-weekly or monthly, in addition to my MarTech sector deep dives.

But first, a word from our sponsor of this week’s edition…

Past issues include: 

⚡The Barry Hott Ugly Ads Edition which revealed the science of getting past people’s subconscious ad blockers.

⚡ The Sarah Levinger Psychology-Based Creative Edition showing how to properly use emotion and brain science in your advertising.

⚡The Alex Cooper A-to-Z of Ad Production Edition giving teams a relentlessly practical guide to ideation and iteration. 

Plus, we’ve covered things like how HexClad's Head of Growth Connor Rolain runs his creative strategy flywheel, how to properly back into a MER goal, contribution margin tutorials, and advanced ad analysis techniques. 

Fixing eCommerce Returns

Returns are a huge issue for many ecommerce brands, particularly fashion brands or any product where “fit” and “comfort” are dealbreakers for customers.

The traditional method of handling returns is cumbersome (for both customers and brands) AND costly (for sellers).

Enter, brands like Happy Returns which aims to simplify the returns process (no more customer labeling and packaging) AND reduce shipping costs (customer drops products at local shipping sites).

2022 and 2023 saw this brand absolutely explode in popularity:

Happy Returns Competitors to Watch:

AI Analytics Tools Emerge

AI coding, content generation, and image generation have so far led the AI adoption curve, BUT the real game changer might actually be AI analytics tools.

Data analysis is one of those resource intensive but high payoff activities that can change business trajectories. Every business throws off SO MUCH data that is effectively uncaptured and unprocessed.

The emerging field of AI business intelligence tools will likely be a combination of new entrants AND old BI platforms adopting AI. Either way, it’s an exciting trend line:

AI Analytics Names I’m Watching:

Workflow Automation

This isn’t a “new” trend so much as it’s a steadily increasing one over the last 5+ years.

The dual emergence of AI tools + pre-existing automation trends mean 2024 could be the year the nature of “work” changes fundamentally with less coordination time & “hopping on Zooms” and more productivity and systems.

I previously covered some email & calendar workflow tools (Motion, Reclaim, others), but this expands to the enterprise level as well.

A side effect of this trend might mean the rise of more companies and brands with fewer “employees” but where it’s easier than ever to start and scale ideas.

Workflow Automation Tools to Watch:

Past issues include: 

⚡The Barry Hott Ugly Ads Edition which revealed the science of getting past people’s subconscious ad blockers.

⚡ The Sarah Levinger Psychology-Based Creative Edition showing how to properly use emotion and brain science in your advertising.

⚡The Alex Cooper A-to-Z of Ad Production Edition giving teams a relentlessly practical guide to ideation and iteration. 

Plus, we’ve covered things like how HexClad's Head of Growth Connor Rolain runs his creative strategy flywheel, how to properly back into a MER goal, contribution margin tutorials, and advanced ad analysis techniques. 

That’s it for this week, I’ll be back with some deep dives in January (including AI detection tools, and AI enabled email marketing tools).