"What Salesforce.com did for sales management and NetSuite did for financial management, software-as-a-service providers will do for marketing, by automating much of what marketers do every day," Rayport says.
As ever greater dollars are shifted to digital from other forms of marketing, marketing technology will rise in importance—and spell doom for activities like planning, budgeting and management.
"Instead of setting advertising budgets on quarterly cycles, marketers will launch ad initiatives whenever opportunities emerge, and they will optimize them for efficiency and effectiveness on the fly," Rayport says.
"Bidding on ad exchanges already happens in real time; enhancements in media placement and creative execution (for example, what image goes with what copy for a given recipient) will occur with similar speed. The 'budget cycle' is already a quaint idea. It will soon be a thing of the past."
