The Ascendancy Of Marketing Analytics
As many elements of marketing services and software become commoditized, agencies are looking for ways to differentiate, boost margins, and become indispensable to clients. The answer: analytics. Tools that help marketers translate the database into consumer insights and help drive marketing strategy will differentiate leading marketing services and software vendors from contenders and risky bets.

How do we know that analytics is reshaping marketing? We just completed comprehensive evaluations of three marketing services and software markets: email marketing, database marketing, and enterprise marketing. These Forrester Waves™ took into account more than 500 user surveys, 143 vendor and user interviews, detailed lab tests, and more than 350 evaluation criteria.

What Analytics' Ascendancy Means For Marketers
The ascendancy of analytics will change how marketers look for a marketing services and/or software provider. Here are some key questions to consider. Does your prospective vendor:

• Require its analytics software to sit on top of a proprietary database? And if so, are you prepared to build a new database if necessary? If you're looking to overhaul your database and start from scratch, Teradata's enterprise marketing suite provides standout analytics capabilities, but it requires the use of Teradata's proprietary database.

• Integrate analytics and segmentation capabilities with other necessary functions, including marketing resource management (MRM), campaign management, and marketing optimization? Vendors that incorporate analytics capabilities into a complete package, like Unica's enterprise marketing platform, win high marks from clients for their comprehensive vision of marketing.

• Help you to better understand your customer? The best marketing analytics tools -- like Epsilon's database marketing and email marketing services -- help interpret the contents of your database, providing insights into your customers' preferences and directing marketing strategy.

What Analytics' Ascendancy Means For Vendors
We've already seen lots of consolidation in marketing services. SSA Global's acquisition of Epiphany and Aprimo's acquisition of DoubleClick are only two examples of vendors trying to offer more comprehensive enterprise marketing services and suites. As consolidation continues and marketers demand more integrated technology and analytics, marketing services and software providers will:

• Play catch-up with the best-in-class analytics vendors like SAS, which got its start -- and made its name -- in data. Even leading vendors like Unica and Epsilon will look to beef up their analytics capabilities to offer clients more robust solutions that better compete with best-of-breed analytics providers.

• Improve analytics while offering a more comprehensive enterprise marketing suite, including MRM, campaign management, and marketing optimization. Clients will value having all of these capabilities in one software suite.

• For database providers like Teradata, provide analytics software for customers who don't use their proprietary database. Even analytics-savvy vendors stand to lose out if they restrict themselves to only clients using their proprietary database.

To see how marketing services and software providers stack up against each other in terms of analytics and other capabilities in the database, enterprise, and email marketing spaces, check out the Forrester Wave evaluations of these industries.

In the upcoming weeks, we'll be completing research on emerging marketing channels, behavioral targeting, the database marketing service providers landscape, the future of direct marketing, word-of-mouth marketing in 2006, multichannel media brands, consumer trust in traditional media and emerging online content, the impact of the Internet on consumers, multitasking, user interface design, and streaming video.

Regards,
Chris Charron
Vice President, Research Director
Devices, Media, & Marketing Research

P.S. If you'd like to suggest research for us to write or if there are data points you're looking to track down, feel free to drop me a line anytime at chrischarron@forrester.com.

Research Referenced In This Issue Advertising Campaigns That Drive Web Traffic (37520) Aprimo's DoubleClick Acquisition: Risky Business (37216) Broadband Creates A Content Business Model (38609) Charting The Course Of Marketing Software (37565) Email Marketing Service Providers Scorecard Summary: Epsilon Interactive (38373) Enterprise Marketing Platforms: Teradata's Next Release Will Improve Its Standing (38490) Enterprise Marketing Platforms: Unica Offers The Leading Solution For B2C Marketers (38491) Epsilon Sets The Standard For Database Marketing Service Providers (38480) Google Gets Loyalty Lock-In With Google Pack (38721) HP's Design Focus Will Pay Off (35109) Integrated Marketers Win Super Bowl XL (38905) Social Computing (38772) SSA Global Makes Bold Front-Office Play (37566) The Forrester Wave™: Database Marketing Service Providers, Q1 2006 (37150) The Forrester Wave™: Email Marketing Service Providers, Q4 2005 (37142) The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Marketing Platforms, Q1 2006 (37151) UK Consumers Adopt Blogs And Online Commentary (38875) Vonage's High-Risk Future (38973) Who's Winning And Losing Mobile Subscribers (36437)

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