In contrast to the focus on customer retention and market penetration strategies in 2020 and early 2021, the balance of this year and next will feature a greater emphasis on new customer acquisition. Such pressure for immediate growth means that while investment in emerging technologies — like AI for marketing — continues apace, marketers are also grappling with the challenges associated with these powerful yet immature technologies.

Consider the following dynamics: • Advanced technologies such as AI for marketing promise transformative capabilities such as personalization of advertising and marketing engagements. Marketing platforms such as multichannel marketing hubs (MMHs), customer data platforms and mobile marketing platforms are integrating AI and machine learning (ML) capabilities. The appetite for such tools only continues to grow as 52% of marketers Gartner surveyed in 2021 were using AI and ML, with another 38% in the planning or piloting stages with AI/ML. However, only 17% have deployed AI across all aspects of their marketing technology stacks. Marketers still struggle to operationalize this emerging technology citing complexity and lack of resources (people and technology), and a certain amount of distrust. Among marketers using AI and ML, 73% find it difficult to trust AI and ML with important decisions.

• Emerging technologies in the early stages of their journey to maturity — influence engineering (making its first appearance on the Hype Cycle for Digital Marketing) and customer data ethics — are fueled by a fundamental shift in how marketers acquire and exploit customer data. In particular, consumers, consumer industry groups and government regulators have pushed for greater transparency and consumer control over data collection practices. These include some of the largest tech players in the world.

Marketers must find their footing in this new reality.

• COVID-19 forced marketers to double-down on marketing technology to accelerate incomplete digital transformations. As a result, technologies such as event-triggered marketing, mobile wallet marketing and MMHs progressed more quickly toward maturity. Mobile marketing analytics — a profile Gartner expected to see mature and graduate off the Hype Cycle — will probably extend for at least another year as the marketers grapple with the practical impact of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework on mobile advertising dollars and optimizing campaigns with less data.