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Your Passport to Smarter Marketing: UK Travel Trends
CTOs must flip the martech conversation
and start with a dynamic data foundation
Reimagine how data empowers the future martech stack
Marketing technology is a continuous conundrum for the CTO. They’re under pressure to rationalise martech stacks to cut costs, but at the same time they’re constantly being asked to evaluate or invest in the latest tool to power innovation, drive transformation, and grow the business.
For the last 15 years, CTOs have poured investment into a long line of martech platforms and solutions – each one promising to fulfil a specific business need. And the expansion of martech shows no sign of slowing, with the current LUMAscape containing over 15,000 solutions, Forrester predicting worldwide martech spend will surpass $215 billion by 2027, and an explosion of AI tools flooding the market.
But despite – or perhaps because of – the vast range of technologies available, most businesses struggle with excessive technical debt and a complex and unwieldy martech stack that doesn’t drive sufficient growth. In an AI-powered world, where boards expect connected technologies to drive commercial success, CTOs are working with fragmented systems that simply can’t deliver. In fact, two-thirds (66%) of businesses report overlapping functionality in different martech tools that leads to unnecessary complexity, according to our recent research into martech modernisation.
Essentially, CTOs have invested in data and martech ecosystems that are failing to meet their key objectives and KPIs.
It’s time for CTOs to take a new, simpler approach – one that turns the martech conversation on its head by starting not with the endless solutions, tools, and platforms that make up the experience layer of the martech stack, but with the data that feeds them. Rather than keep building tech on top of tech, or contemplating an entire rip and replace, they can future-proof their existing stack, increase agility, and improve budget management through solid, connected data foundations.
This isn’t just transformation – it’s a full-scale rethink of how data powers the future.
Stop buying tech. Just connect what you’ve got.
Changes to the martech stack are ongoing, with 99% of businesses planning to make changes in the next 12 months. Over a third (35%) will replace existing tools, while 29% will add more. But the reality is, most IT departments already have all the technology they need to keep the marketing team happy. There’s little need to invest in more.
The problem is that IT teams have built and bought solutions around channel development. The result is greater segregation and complexity.
There are platforms to serve paid media and manage programmatic, display, social, and video. There are solutions to deal with owned media, including email, web, app, and e-commerce. And there are tools to assist with physical media such as point-of-sale or in-store advertising. Each of these technologies – and its associated data – is deployed and managed in siloes, limiting their value from the outset.
The solution is to use these platforms more strategically, making them interconnected. Connectivity should be simplified not at the channel or experience layer – where campaigns are launched and managed – but through the customer, in the underlying data layer. This requires reimagining how we design a data estate that unifies all data points, enabling a holistic understanding of the customer, something that today remains highly fragmented.
When information silos are broken down to create a holistic data foundation, all experience platforms will benefit from the insights generated. By fully integrating these tools, with a real-time information flow, they can work from a 360-degree view of the consumer, which supports the seamless, connected interactions that will power growth.
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of organisations say integration with existing systems isn’t always considered when making martech purchases.
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of organisations say different teams are responsible for different solutions or aspects of martech.
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of organisations say fragmented and siloed data hinders their ability to deliver personalised experiences.
So to drive real commercial impact, you need to rearchitect your entire ecosystem, building it around data and therefore – by definition – around the customer. Because in a world moving at speed, disconnected data and channel silos aren’t just inefficient – they’re a fast track to irrelevance.
South Western Railway takes a passenger-first approach
South Western Railway (SWR) had a siloed infrastructure, making it difficult to understand customers and deliver consistent messaging across channels.
Acxiom worked with SWR to evaluate their needs, develop a strategy, and implement a transformational roadmap, connecting data to enable omnichannel experiences.
The result? SWR now takes a passenger-first approach that leads with data and activates via a fully integrated marketing intelligence solution.
It’s not just tech and data siloes that need breaking down. You also need to reimagine agency partnerships and internal team structures to support an intelligent, integrated ecosystem. Agencies, for example, can no longer focus solely on crafting great experiences – they must also become expert data architects, capable of building the foundations that power those experiences. And brands must bring in the right talent to build and support the connected solutions of the future.
Rapid value creation through a unique customer fabric
Building a martech ecosystem around data – and therefore the customer – requires a smart, dynamic data foundation.
It’s easy for CTOs to assume a data solution, such as a customer data platform (CDP), is implemented in the same way as any other piece of marketing technology. Or that a data foundation is just some sort of storage tool, like a data lake or warehouse.
But what CTOs actually need is a connected, holistic data foundation that can power experience platforms, and is agile enough to deliver the use cases of today while fuelling innovation for tomorrow. Organisations need to decouple their data solution from other technology integrations and create a unique customer fabric. This incorporates multiple elements including:
- Connected enterprise data
- Identity resolution to stitch data together
- Ability to process and activate real time customer signals
- Artificial intelligence to predict customer needs
- Analytics to model audiences
- Collaborative data sharing with partners
Businesses need to reimagine what a truly 360-degree data estate looks like – not just collecting data, but actively enhancing, connecting, and collaborating across siloes to remain competitive.
This smart, dynamic data foundation feeds up into all the experience platforms organisations already have – from adtech solutions to ecommerce platforms. It allows businesses to grow and scale not through the addition of tech solutions but through smart use of data.
The data solution of the future is focused on rapid value creation for the enterprise by creating a strategic customer data asset. The key differentiator is that this customer asset is no longer the enabler of primarily marketing use cases but it can be used to power enterprise-wide use cases for analytics, scheduling, finance, client operations and AI that can drive top line and bottom line benefits for the organisation.
Heathrow Airport adopts one-to-one communications
Heathrow Airport had a CRM, but it wasn’t delivering the expected return. Data was fragmented, and personalisation was limited.
Acxiom helped Heathrow modernise their stack and build a CRM strategy that included segmentation, campaign execution, analytics, and business intelligence.
The result? One-to-one, personalised communications that improved the passenger experience and unlocked new revenue streams. That work even earned us a Salesforce Partner Innovation Award.
AI will only ever be as good as the data that feeds it
The rapid emergence of AI is shaking up the way CTOs view marketing technology:
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of businesses say the emergence of AI has already prompted them to review their existing tech stack.
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of businesses feel the evolution of AI will require an overhaul of their existing martech solutions.
Right now AI is largely viewed as a new capability – a novel tactic to try on specific use cases or campaigns and test the impact. But ultimately AI will need to be integrated into every part of the martech stack, including the data foundation. To automate marketing and deliver the transformative results it promises, it must become a thread that runs through everything an organisation does.
A weak data estate will quietly sabotage even the boldest AI ambitions, because fundamentally AI is only as good as the data used to train and power it. AI doesn’t create clarity, it amplifies what it’s given, so if your data is fragmented, outdated, or inaccessible, the insights will be too.
‘Garbage in, garbage out’ has never been more valid. If you feed AI poor-quality data, the results will be just as poor. Incomplete or incorrect data will increase occurrences of AI hallucinations which will have to be addressed with extensive training and guardrails. And outdated data will generate less valuable or accurate recommendations or decisions.
So, no CTO can claim to deliver meaningful AI outcomes without first redesigning their data architecture. To leverage the full power of AI, data from the entire enterprise needs to be connected and made available to AI solutions. In addition to customer data from every channel, this also includes organisational data – things like product catalogues and availability, training manuals, and call recordings or chat logs.
To unlock AI’s true potential, CTOs need to reimagine what a future-ready data foundation looks like. Clean, connected, governed, and built for scale and agility. Only then can AI move from promise to performance, and power the intelligent, adaptive experiences that will drive growth.
From resource to revenue:
It’s time to put your data to work
Rethinking martech for the future demands more than a tweak. It calls for a new kind of architecture – one that flips the traditional model and moves from experience-first, top-down systems to a bottom-up, data-led ecosystem. In this new model, data isn’t just a resource, it’s the foundation of a truly connected experience engine.
Get in touch to find out more about how Acxiom can help you prepare for a data-powered future today.
Acxiom can be by your side throughout this process, helping you put your data to work to solve your most difficult challenges, so you can cut costs and pay-down technical debt while staying ahead of tech advancement and growing the business.
CMOs have all the data and tech they need for growth
Here’s how to put it to work
The omnichannel dream needs a new approach
CMOs are operating in a tough climate. They must drive growth despite stagnating marketing budgets. They’ve invested heavily in talent and technology to keep up with evolving expectations, but they’re not getting the return they need. They’re under mounting pressure to make use of AI, but they don’t know where to start.
The secret to success – as just about every martech player will tell you – is seamless, omnichannel customer experiences that elevate a brand above its competition.
But the harsh reality is most brands are unable to deliver truly omnichannel experiences due to disconnected data and technology. Brands might celebrate omnichannel campaigns but really they’re still just stitching together silos, not fully integrating customer journeys to drive strategic business outcomes.
Something fundamental has to change. CMOs can’t keep doing the same thing they’ve done for the past ten years and expect different results. No amount of new technology will drive the growth they need unless they first connect the underlying data foundation that feeds up into those technologies.
Instead of chasing the latest experience platform, CMOs need a modernised approach to marketing – one that makes use of the data and technology they already have, and puts the customer at the centre of everything they do, to deliver growth through a genuinely omnichannel strategy.
This is about more than transformation — it’s about customer centricity and building marketing that works the way people live.
Smash those siloes once and for all
Marketing has seen a flood of new channels and technologies in the past decade. But there’s been very little real change in the way marketing teams and departments are set up.
The majority of brands operate fragmented ecosystems of tech, data, agencies, and internal teams that serve individual channels, not integrated customer journeys. So they’re still marketing through the lens of how their business is structured.
Paid media, for example, is managed by a media agency, while the web experience is the responsibility of a digital agency, and physical advertising is handled by a brand agency. Data and technologies are deployed within the confines of these siloes – limiting their potential from the outset.
This disconnect is caused by:
Tech
Tech is historically designed and deployed for a single channel, whether that’s email, website, or display advertising, so it can’t deliver connected experiences.
Expertise
Marketing talent is focused on specific channels or technologies, resulting in fragmented customer experiences.
Partners
Agencies and consultants are often structured around single marketing functions, making it difficult to deliver a holistic omnichannel experience.
These traditional channel or function-based ecosystems aren’t built for the omnichannel journeys taken by today’s (and tomorrow’s) customers. Brands can’t keep deploying data and technology in siloes and somehow expect breakthrough performance.
It’s time for brands to reimagine what data, tech, agency partnerships, and internal structures look like, dismantle those siloes once and for all, and build ecosystems for intelligence and integration.
Your brand needs an agile marketing engine that is:
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not managed in isolation
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which is embedded into every decision
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because customers move across channels
Strive for more value, not more tech
What’s holding most brands back from achieving the omnichannel dream isn’t the tools — it’s how they’re using them. After years of relentless tech buying, the capabilities already exist in most organisations to deliver growth through omnichannel customer experiences. The data and tech just need to be connected and orchestrated in the right way.
The average enterprise is juggling a complex martech stack and there’s no let-up, with 99% of businesses planning tech changes this year. But according to Gartner, only a third (33%) of existing martech solutions are currently being used, meaning brands are spending budget on technologies they’re not getting a return from. Our own research reveals 63% of martech purchases occur across different teams without collaboration, and 66% of brands report overlapping functionality, leading to waste and unnecessary complexity.
It’s time to end the martech arms race, and for CMOs to shift their focus from acquiring more tech to deploying the tools they have as part of a martech strategy that’s fully aligned with business strategy.
To optimise the tech you already have:
1. Start with the customer
With a clear martech strategy that’s wrapped around the customer rather than channels or tech, CMOs can get clarity on what customers want and what the business is trying to achieve to ensure alignment across functions like marketing, IT, sales, and customer service. Then tech tools can support the plan, instead of dictating it.
2. Stop chasing shiny things
All too often martech tools are bought based on hype, a slick sales pitch, or a belief they’ll be a “silver bullet”. But that mindset leads to knee-jerk decisions with no clear return on investment. AI is a great example, with 48% of businesses saying AI’s emergence has already prompted them to review their existing tech stack. But AI, like any other tool, is only useful when it’s aligned to a clear, customer-centric strategy and fueled by clean, connected data.
3. Build a data foundation
You can have the most advanced platforms in the world, but if your data is fragmented, outdated, or inconsistent, you’re building on shaky ground. You need to maximise the quality and accuracy of your data, ensure that data is compliant, connected, and actionable, and use it to create a single customer view. Then embed that intelligence at every level — planning, activation, and optimisation — to make your martech work for the business.
The brands that succeed will be those who stop chasing tools — and start building smarter strategies, grounded in solid data.
real results
Heathrow Airport adopts one-to-one communications
Heathrow Airport had a CRM, but it wasn’t delivering the expected return. Data was fragmented, and personalisation was limited.
Acxiom helped Heathrow modernise their stack and build a CRM strategy that included segmentation, campaign execution, analytics, and business intelligence.
The result? One-to-one, personalised communications that improved the passenger experience and unlocked new revenue streams. That work even earned us a Salesforce Partner Innovation Award.
Meet customers throughout their journey
Once you dismantle those siloes, and orchestrate technologies through a connected data foundation, you’ll finally meet your customers where they are. Instead of single marketing moments in individual channels, you can engage in intentional interactions at every step of their journey. Why? Because you can predict where they’ll be on the path to purchase.
Despite decades of talk, most brands still fail to operationalise true customer centricity. With connected data you really can put people at the centre of everything your brand does, and leverage technologies like AI to build marketing the way they live their lives.
Data is your clearest window into customer needs, preferences, and behaviours. It’s the foundation for meaningful marketing. So, if you put AI-powered customer intelligence at the heart of your marketing strategy, your business naturally becomes customer centric. Only by making full use of the data assets available, can brands gain the insights and understanding to drive omnichannel customer experience and competitive advantage.
Customer centricity powers enterprise growth. When marketing leads with insight and intent, it creates ripple effects across sales, product, service, and innovation — fueling collaboration, consistency, and long-term value. And time to value is surprisingly short. A unified vision and strategy alignment across the business can generate value in months, when you also optimise your existing data and technology.
real results
South Western Railway takes a passenger-first approach
South Western Railway (SWR) had a siloed infrastructure, making it difficult to understand customers and deliver consistent messaging across channels.
Acxiom worked with SWR to evaluate their needs, develop a strategy, and implement a transformational roadmap, connecting data to enable omnichannel experiences.
The result? SWR now takes a passenger-first approach which leads with data and activates via a fully integrated marketing intelligence solution.
Realise fast value from your data and tech
Acxiom will be by your side during your transformational journey. We’ll help you integrate siloes, centralise customer intelligence, and modernise your marketing strategy enabling you to achieve up to:
25%
better customer engagement
34%
uplift in sales performance
73%
reduction in integration costs
Our simple four-step process delivers value in a matter of months:
Step one: Maturity assessment
We’ll assess and score your marketing maturity state, and identify the sticking points in your customer journey.
Step two: Strategy setting
We’ll understand what you want to achieve and define a new people-first marketing strategy.
Step three: Ecosystem redesign
We’ll analyse and redesign your martech and adtech ecosystem to make your existing data and tools work harder for you.
Step four: Roadmap implementation
We’ll implement a phased multi-year roadmap that connects your people, platforms, and processes around impact.
Get in touch to find out how we can put your data to work
Solving your most difficult challenges, and realising the greatest value from the data and the technology you already have, as you deliver growth through truly customer-centric, omnichannel experiences.
Adapting Your Media and Search Strategy to the Rise of AI
The rise of AI is upending traditional search. Adapt your strategy now or risk losing visibility.
AI-powered search is changing how people discover brands. Is your brand optimized for AI search algorithms and generative search results? Download Acxiom’s latest POV, “Adapting Your Media and Search Strategy to the Rise of AI,” for actionable insights, AI overviews, and practical strategies to dominate the new search paradigm.
Read about Interact, our data and identity-driven, AI-powered marketing platform, designed to meet the demands of AI-driven search, enabling you to deliver and reach audiences at scale across every touchpoint. Look for more installments in The AI POV Series, as we explore such things as “How AI is Rewiring the Marketing Playbook,” “Data Readiness, AI-powered,” and more.
Want more insights like this?
Fill out the form to get future POVs from Acxiom’s AI Series, plus related thought leadership on data, marketing, and innovation.
These resources are for corporate entities only and Acxiom may contact you regarding your interest. We will use your personal data for marketing purposes. For our privacy policy and options to opt out, click here. For our Email Preference Centre click here. If you are a partnership or sole trader, please contact ukenquiries@acxiom.com.
How AI is Rewiring the Marketing Playbook
Harness the power of AI to transform your marketing strategies and drive unprecedented growth.
AI is no longer a futuristic concept – it’s reshaping consumer behaviour and the marketing landscape today. Download Acxiom’s latest POV, “How AI is Rewiring the Marketing Playbook,” to uncover actionable AI marketing strategies, understand the critical risks, and learn how to maximise the value of your data and technology investments in the age of AI. Look for more installments of The AI POV Series as we explore such things as search strategy and the rise of AI, data readiness, AI-powered, and more.
Want more insights like this?
Fill out the form to get future POVs from Acxiom’s AI Series, plus related thought leadership on data, marketing, and innovation.
These resources are for corporate entities only and Acxiom may contact you regarding your interest. We will use your personal data for marketing purposes. For our privacy policy and options to opt out, click here. For our Email Preference Centre click here. If you are a partnership or sole trader, please contact ukenquiries@acxiom.com.
Are You Ready for Marketing Made Better?
We can help you understand your customers, stay ahead of regulations, and grow your business.
Google, Cookies & Courts
What the latest developments mean for advertisers
From the privacy sandbox to incognito mode and legal rulings, the long-term implications of Google’s latest decisions continue to unfold, impacting how brands reach people and how individuals experience the digital world.
Read our recent whitepaper summarising our point of view on the latest news around third-party cookies in Chrome, as we discuss:
- Google news
- Regulatory fines and data concerns
- Third-party cookie complexity
- Industry push back
- Final thoughts: First-party data and identity resilient strategies
Download the report
An Acxiom POV
Google, Cookies & Courts: What the latest developments mean for advertisers
Download the report
Are You Ready for Marketing Made Better?
We can help you understand your customers, stay ahead of regulations, and grow your business.
Maximizing Your Salesforce Investment With Acxiom
Insights from Forrester
When optimizing Salesforce, having the right partner can make all the difference. To provide a clear, objective perspective, Acxiom commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact™ study, offering a comprehensive look at the measurable outcomes our clients have achieved.
This study serves as a resource for businesses seeking to understand the tangible benefits and cost efficiencies of partnering with a trusted service provider like Acxiom.
Here’s what you can expect:
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Understand the quantifiable business benefits achieved by Acxiom’s clients.
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Learn how we accelerate your Salesforce outcomes.
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Discover how companies streamline processes and scale with confidence.
Based on a composite organization representative of interviewed customers, these findings highlight how organizations can drive impactful change by leveraging Acxiom’s Salesforce Services.
Why Acxiom?
With nearly 60 years of data expertise and a deep understanding of all the Salesforce clouds, Acxiom goes beyond implementation to drive real business transformation. Our tailored approach unifies data, accelerates time-to-value, and enhances operational efficiency, empowering organizations to innovate at scale in today’s digital landscape.
Explore the Full Study
Access the Forrester TEI Study to gain a deeper understanding of how Acxiom’s Salesforce Services can help you achieve your business goals.
DownloadSeamless journeys start with smart marketing: the travel CX gap
The travel and hospitality industry is facing an increasingly competitive landscape. The rise of OTAs and the sharing economy have disrupted the market, and the ease of booking travel and experiences online has empowered consumers with more choices than ever.
To succeed in this environment, brands must go beyond simply offering good service; they need to deliver exceptional customer experiences that foster loyalty and cater to each customer’s unique preferences and circumstances.
Cloud-based, AI-enhanced MarTech platforms can help deliver these personalised experiences, but only if they’re fuelled with and enabled by the right data and technology.
The question is, do travel and hospitality brands have the necessary foundations in place to achieve this level of CX excellence?
Market leading research consultancy MTM to survey more than 200 Travel and Hospitality brands to establish if they are:
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Resourcing to address their highest priority marketing challenges and ambitions
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Collecting and using the right data to optimise marketing efforts
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Capitalising on technology to enable personalised customer experiences
To learn more about what we found, download the full report.
