We met with Paul Lima, Managing Partner at Lima Consulting Group to talk about the top Digital Marketing trends for 2015. We went over some of his previous predictions for 2013 and 2014 and we were amazed to find that most of them happened! We need to find out where he keeps the crystal ball!
We hope you enjoy this Q&A session as much as we did. We encourage you to comment and add any other trends you think will happen this year.
Q: Which of your predictions for 2014 made an impact on the digital marketing industry?
A: I predicted there would be consolidation and personalization in the industry, which happened. Bluekai got bought out by Oracle, Kauffman Hall bought Axium, and Bizo got bought out by Linkedin. 2014 was also the year of Tag Management Systems. They continued to go mainstream and we saw tremendous growth- 2,416% over 3 years.
Q: What would you consider the top 3 digital marketing themes of 2015?
A: Mobile, cloud, and cross channel attribution
Q: Do you forsee any new acquisitions?
A: Yes, we are going to see continued growth and acquisitions. HubSpot may get acquired this year, as may Constant Contact, Tableau, Marketo, and Marin Software. I also think Splunk, Gigamon, and Tealium are good acquisition candidates.
Qubit will be coming into the cloud, and although they are small, their pricing and innovation is what will bring them forward.
Ignition1, SiteCore, TaraData are companies that I think have the cash to buy some other players and catapult themselves into higher boxes.
Q: Are the top technology vendors in the industry shifting to open platforms?
A: Yes, and it’s becoming pretty apparent that the strategy that Apple made famous with their apps and the ITunes store has become the standard.
Digital payment services, like Clover, are becoming more common. A company from FirstData, the largest credit card company in the country, allows customers to put their email systems into it, integrates with QuickBooks, and other email marketing tools.
Q: What are the trends you expect to see in 2015?
Read the complete 2015 Digital Marketing Trends analysis here.
