A UK MARTECH Snapshot:
A data story on how the UK’s Marketing Technology economy, focusing on a very specific niche from an International perspective, that might be mired in legislation rather than innovation.
The result of a thought-experiment on how open company data can help identify the current state of the UK Martech sector.
While developing ways of using Open Data to measure the size and location of organisations within the UK Marketing Technology space, I was able to find the exact niche I was looking for and the companies to illustrate it — a sub-sector of organisations that utilise technologies for data management and engagement, designed to make the life of a corporate marketer more productive by offering targeted sales data on a contact level.
It’s a very specific list of companies:
I identified them to test a proposition I am developing: let’s assume that people in specific industry niches will use common language to describe what they do. It needs to be both standout and recognisable, enough to offer unique value without removing themselves too much from what the customer wants. So through the language they use to express their brand, in comparison to others around them , I believe we can take a quantitative approach to identify different types of organisations specific to any pre-defined network. The initial results are the companies you see around you.
In this case (I’m testing the theory to see if it holds water) I zoomed into the available data 3 times, to identify organisations that are similar to AGENT & FIELD (my business) because they offer marketers the ability to access the names and job titles of the individuals who work there. And although I was able to make a good first pass at finding other companies within this space (there are further iterations to be made) there was something that was immediately evident to me.
The companies positioned front and center in this taxonomy are all US based:
Not identified by their language, these organisations were immediately apparent due to position in the market. There involvement in the targeting and provision of business contacts is obvious, as they collectively hold millions of names and job titles that appear as “big data” in the open web. They are even structured, as this mostly outward facing data that needs verification before sale. In this case, it was hard to miss them!
The companies who are located in the UK are falling behind in one very specific way:
There are some with EU presence, both in terms of offices or representatives who can deal with specific legislative problems, and companies offering services that utilise this technology for internal enterprise systems, but no-one offering it as a product in the UK exclusively. Although the trend of monetising open data sets on a company level still provides value for some, no one has moved with the times and made the move to operate in this space in competition to the US market.
The problem might be GDPR:
These companies provide business contact data for individuals from behind a paywall, with the capacity to “see” the person before you pay to access the available channel, that I doubt are double-opt-in. They might operate under slightly different rules, and pay experts to keep “grey” complaint, for assumed legitimacy. They can do this because the personal details have been made perceivable (by consent) in the first case, and is what I define as “Public Facing”. Even if we were to disagree on my last point, Legitimate Interest is all that is required to process this data, as long as it it with respect and accuracy.
But this doesn’t mean that the UK doesn’t have a growing economy in other areas:
In terms of this specific taxonomy niche, this is what I see. However, there is a lot of other data that shows other perspectives. The Marketing Enterprise sector is booming, with organisations understanding that the data they generate is the best way to gain the results within the sector, and there’s a level of obscurity that means that Data Security is the hottest market at the moment. In all of these, there are UK organisations who are leading the field.
So what is my conclusion?
That if you’ve made it this far you must be interested. I want to speak to GDPR experts who can argue with me about how I see compliance to meet this challenge — of offering this data in a market that doesn’t exist in my region. I’m looking for business owners who see value in my words, and ultimately my data. I think that there are a number of platforms that could leverage this for mutual and cultural benefit (looking at you Open Data guys). I’m wanting to speak to Lead Gen teams, who have never tried using better data, to show them what is achievable. If you fall under those categories and have the time to spare, you can contact me through the channels below.
And since you made it this far, here are the companies I’ve been looking at:
https://apollo.io
https://contactout.com
https://kompany.com
https://leadb.co
https://relationshipscience.com
https://rocketreach.co
https://crunchbase.com
https://getemail.io
https://data-lead.com
https://ttmc.co.uk
https://momentumpartnership.com
https://pinagli.co.uk
https://solologic.co.uk
https://marketmakers.co.uk
https://wrm-media.com
https://newerafi.co.uk
https://inflectomedia.com
https://operatix.net
https://driftrock.com
https://global-leads.co.uk
https://valuedirect.in
https://ahead4businessltd.co.uk
https://salesleadgenie.co.uk
https://consumerleadmarketing.co.uk
https://netline.com
https://leadintuition.co.uk
https://fusint.com
https://buddycrm.com
https://conversationalcrm.com
https://kulahub.com
https://rephrase.co.uk
https://prolocus.com
https://zoominfo.com
