Marketing technology – or martech – has evolved over more than a century, from the first media advertisements to today’s AI-powered digital ecosystems. Below is a timeline of key milestones in the history of martech, highlighting how new channels, tools, and regulations have shaped the industry. Each brief milestone captures a pivotal development (spanning B2B and B2C marketing) that pushed marketing into a new era.
1922 – Radio advertising debuts: New York’s WEAF station airs the first paid radio commercial on August 22, 1922 – a 15-minute spot for a real estate firm. This introduced a new marketing channel (“toll broadcasting”) to reach mass audiences in their homes. Radio quickly proved its value for advertisers, creating a template for sponsored content on the airwaves.
1941 – Television’s first commercial: On July 1, 1941, before a baseball game broadcast, NBC’s WNBT in New York aired the first TV ad – a 10-second Bulova Watch Co. spot. It simply showed a clock face and announced the time, costing Bulova only $9. This moment marked the birth of TV advertising, which would grow into a multi-billion-dollar industry in the decades to come.
1950s – From Rolodex to mainframes: Marketers managed customer contacts on paper until the Rolodex, invented in 1956, became a popular tool for organizing leads and client info. By the 1960s, forward-looking companies started using mainframe computers to store customer data, moving beyond manual card files. This era saw the concept of database marketing emerge as businesses began electronically tracking customers for direct mail campaigns.
1985 – Early CRM software: The first software for managing customer relationships appeared. Notably, TeleMagic was released for MS-DOS in 1985, described as an “electronic Rolodex” that did more than store contacts – it integrated with word processors and helped sales reps prioritize leads. This laid groundwork for modern CRM systems.
1987 – Contact management goes mainstream: A program called ACT! (Activity Control Technology) launched as one of the first PC-based contact management softwares. Originally built for sales, ACT! let users digitally store and retrieve customer info – earning the nickname “digital Rolodex.” It proved the demand for dedicated tools to organize and follow up with prospects.
1990 – Integrated sales & marketing platform: The CRM concept advanced with the release of GoldMine in 1990 – the first software to combine contact information, calendar scheduling, email, and sales pipeline data in one system. GoldMine’s all-in-one approach foreshadowed the unified marketing suites to come, showing how sales and marketing data together could drive customer outreach more effectively.
1993 – Sales force automation: Entrepreneur Tom Siebel founded Siebel Systems in 1993, pioneering sales force automation software for enterprises. Siebel’s platform (initially for sales management, later expanding to marketing modules) became the market leader in the mid-90s, popularizing the idea that large companies could centrally manage leads, customer contacts, and communications. This momentum helped evolve what we now call CRM software.
1994 – First banner ad & online advertising: The very first web banner ad was displayed in 1994 on HotWired.com (a digital offshoot of Wired magazine). It was an AT&T ad with the teaser “Have you ever clicked your mouse right here?” – and an astounding click-through rate of ~44% (far above today’s averages around 0.3%). This marked the birth of internet advertising. Soon after, companies like DoubleClick (founded 1996) began offering ad-serving platforms, allowing marketers to display and track ads across many websites. The late ’90s saw an explosion of ad networks and ad servers, setting the stage for targeted and measurable online marketing.
1995 – “CRM” becomes a term: By the mid-90s, software for managing sales and marketing contacts had matured, and the term customer relationship management (CRM) was officially coined around 1995. The formal name gave a unified identity to tools and practices that tracked customers from initial contact through purchase and beyond. Multiple sources credit either Siebel Systems, marketing academic Jagdish Sheth, or Gartner Group with popularizing “CRM”. From this point, CRM became a core part of the business technology lexicon.
1998 – Search engine marketing is born: GoTo.com (later Overture) launched the first pay-per-click search advertising platform in 1998, introducing the model of bidding on keywords. This innovation meant marketers could pay for their ads to appear alongside search results, only paying when users clicked. It was a precursor to Google’s approach and proved immensely successful. (By early 2000s, search ads would become one of the biggest drivers of online marketing.)
1999 – Marketing automation emerges: Eloqua launched in 1999 and is widely credited as the first modern marketing automation platform. Initially built as a digital chatbot, Eloqua pivoted to helping marketers track and nurture leads via email and web campaigns. It introduced features like automated email sequencing, web form integration, and lead scoring – allowing marketers to respond to prospect “buying signals” online. Eloqua’s success spearheaded an entire marketing automation industry in the 2000s (including players like Pardot and Marketo), fundamentally changing how B2B companies handle lead generation.
1999 – The SaaS revolution (Salesforce): This year also saw the founding of Salesforce.com (by Marc Benioff), which offered CRM entirely as a web-based software-as-a-service. In an era dominated by on-premise software, Salesforce’s model of hosting customer data in the cloud and delivering updates over the internet was revolutionary. By eliminating complex installations and providing subscription pricing, Salesforce paved the way for widespread adoption of cloud-based marketing tools. The success of its CRM (now the largest in the world) proved that businesses were ready to embrace SaaS for critical marketing operations.
2000 – Google AdWords and modern PPC: Google entered online advertising in a big way with the launch of AdWords in 2000. AdWords (now Google Ads) introduced a self-serve platform for pay-per-click ads, initially alongside search results and later across the web via the Google Display Network. This innovation brought sophisticated keyword targeting and auction-based ad pricing to the masses. By offering cost-per-click bidding and precise audience targeting, Google dramatically scaled digital advertising – helping advertisers small and large reach customers globally. Paid search and display advertising quickly became core tactics in every marketer’s toolkit.
2004–2006 – The social media marketing frontier: The mid-2000s gave rise to social networks like Facebook (opened to the public in 2006), YouTube (2005), and Twitter (2006). These platforms created entirely new channels for marketers to engage consumers. Brands began crafting social media marketing strategies – from organic content to early social ads – to tap into viral sharing and online communities. Facebook introduced its first advertising options around 2005–2006, allowing companies to target users based on profile data. This era also saw the emergence of social media management tools to schedule posts and monitor engagement. As one analysis noted, tech giants like Facebook (and Google and Apple) built new ecosystems in this period that reshaped how brands communicate, giving marketers avenues like app stores and social feeds to reach customers.
2007 – The smartphone revolution (mobile marketing): Apple’s release of the iPhone in 2007 catalyzed a sea change in marketing. Smartphones put email, web, and apps into everyone’s pocket, making mobile marketing a centerpiece of strategy. Early mobile ads were clunky (often just downsized desktop banners), but the rapid proliferation of 3G internet and app usage forced innovation. Marketers recognized that phones were becoming the first screen for consumers. By late 2000s, brands were investing in mobile-responsive websites, SMS campaigns, and in-app ads. In parallel, the iPhone’s success spurred the rise of mobile app analytics and push notifications as marketing tools. Apps in every category – from social media to gaming – became new platforms for advertising and customer engagement. In short, smartphones profoundly changed consumer behavior, and marketing tactics evolved accordingly to meet people on the go.
2007 – Programmatic advertising begins: Around the same time, digital advertising underwent another leap with the advent of real-time bidding (RTB) on ad exchanges. In 2007, ad tech companies introduced RTB systems that let advertisers bid on individual ad impressions in milliseconds, via automated platforms. This was the dawn of programmatic advertising, where buying and selling of ad space became algorithm-driven. Programmatic buying enabled unprecedented targeting (by user behavior or demographics) and efficiency in ad spend. By the early 2010s, programmatic would dominate display advertising, extending to video and even traditional media. Marketers now had to master demand-side platforms (DSPs) and data management platforms (DMPs) to optimize their ad campaigns, reflecting how technology and automation were redefining media buying.
2011 – Chiefmartec’s landscape & the Martech boom: The marketing technology “landscape” was first charted in 2011 by blogger Scott Brinker (chiefmartec.com). His initial infographic organized about 150 marketing tools into a few categories. This was eye-opening at the time – few realized how many software solutions were already serving marketers. It also effectively gave a name to the space (“martech”). Over the next few years, Brinker updated the landscape annually, and the growth was staggering. By 2014, his graphic featured ~1,000 solutions; by 2015 it was ~1,800 (which observers already found “frightening” in its complexity). This period saw thousands of startups and new products targeting every niche of marketing, from automation and analytics to content, social, and e-commerce tools. The landscape symbolized the fragmentation and innovation in marketing tech – and became a handy barometer of the industry’s size. (In addition, 2014 marked the inaugural MarTech Conference in Boston, which Brinker launched to bring the growing community together and debate issues like “suites vs. best-of-breed” solutions.)
2013 – Customer Data Platform (CDP) is defined: As marketers accumulated data across many channels, the need for unified customer profiles grew. In 2013, analyst David Raab identified a new class of software to meet this need and coined the term “Customer Data Platform.” In an influential blog post, Raab described “a new type of system” that collects data from multiple sources, matches it to the same customer, and then syndicates insights to other tools. He “hereby christened” it a Customer Data Platform. Later that year, Raab published the first industry report on CDPs, profiling 11 early vendors. By 2016, CDPs appeared on Gartner’s Hype Cycle and a dedicated CDP Institute formed, validating this as a major martech category. CDPs filled a gap left by CRM and DMP systems – enabling marketers to own and utilize first-party customer data for personalization in a privacy-compliant way.
2017 – “Martech 5000”: 5,000+ solutions and counting: The proliferation of marketing tools reached a milestone in 2017 when Brinker’s annual landscape surpassed 5,000 solutions (5,381 to be precise). He dubbed that year’s edition the “Martech 5000”, underscoring how vast the ecosystem had become. For perspective, the 2011 landscape had 150 tools – so in just six years the number of martech products grew by over 3,500%. These solutions spanned advertising, content, data, e-commerce, social, and more – illustrating that for virtually every marketing function, dozens of specialized tools existed. This explosion was fueled by low barriers to building software (cloud, open-source, APIs) and a huge influx of venture funding into marketing and advertising tech startups. Marketers in 2017 faced an unprecedented array of choices (and complexity) in assembling their marketing stacks.
2018 – GDPR and the privacy paradigm shift: On May 25, 2018, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force, representing the toughest data privacy law to date. GDPR set a global standard for how personal data must be handled – requiring explicit user consent for data collection, giving individuals rights to access or delete their data, and threatening fines up to 4% of worldwide revenue for violations. This had sweeping implications for martech: email lists required re-permissioning, cookies and tracking needed consent banners, and data security and governance became top-of-mind. GDPR also inspired similar regulations around the world. Marketers had to adopt a privacy-by-design mindset, ensuring their technology (from CRM to analytics to ad platforms) complied with new restrictions. The era of legally mandated respect for consumer data had fully arrived, reshaping marketing strategies and the features of marketing software (e.g. built-in consent management).
2018 – Enterprise marketing clouds consolidate (Adobe buys Marketo): A notable industry development in 2018 was the continued consolidation of major marketing software providers into enterprise “cloud” suites. For example, Adobe acquired Marketo in October 2018 for $4.75 billion, bringing a leading B2B automation platform into the Adobe Experience Cloud. This followed other big deals in the years prior (Oracle buying Eloqua in 2012, Salesforce buying ExactTarget/Pardot in 2013). By late 2010s, a handful of tech giants (Adobe, Salesforce, Oracle, IBM, SAP, etc.) had each assembled broad marketing clouds via acquisitions – offering everything from email and automation to analytics and e-commerce under one umbrella. While this promised integrated suites, it also sometimes slowed innovation. In parallel, a “best-of-breed” approach persisted, with new startups continuing to enter the martech space, ensuring that even as some companies merged, the overall number of tools kept rising.
2020 – COVID-19 accelerates digital-first marketing: The global pandemic drastically accelerated digital transformation in marketing. With in-person channels shut down, companies pivoted to webinars, virtual events, email outreach, and e-commerce in an unprecedented way. The crisis initially prompted fears of martech consolidation or budget cuts, but in reality it boosted martech adoption: businesses had no choice but to rely on digital tools to reach customers. The pressure to digitize customer experiences in 2020 ended up expanding the martech sector. By the end of 2020, total marketing technology solutions numbered around 8,000, up from ~7,000 in 2019. In other words, even during an economic shock, the martech landscape grew ~13% that year. The pandemic underscored the resilience of martech and entrenched many new tools (for virtual meeting, digital collaboration, online customer service, etc.) into the marketer’s everyday stack.
2020 (Jan) – CCPA ushers in U.S. privacy law: The California Consumer Privacy Act took effect on January 1, 2020, becoming the first major U.S. law akin to GDPR. CCPA granted California residents new rights over their personal data – including the right to know what data is collected, to delete data, and to opt out of its sale. Effectively a de facto national standard, CCPA required businesses (above certain size thresholds) to update privacy policies, add “Do Not Sell My Info” links on websites, and handle consumer data requests. For marketers, compliance meant greater transparency in data practices and often a reduction in third-party data usage for targeting. The era of the “Wild West” of data collection in marketing was coming to an end in the U.S., following Europe’s lead. (CCPA enforcement began July 2020, and its success led to an even stronger California Privacy Rights Act, plus similar laws in other states in subsequent years.)
2022 – Nearly 10,000 martech solutions: After a brief hiatus, Scott Brinker released an updated Marketing Technology Landscape in 2022 and found 9,932 solutions on the market – up from ~8,000 in 2020. Despite some consolidation (almost 1,000 companies had exited via acquisition or shutdown in two years), the sector’s net growth continued to astound at +24% since 2020 and +5,233% since 2011. The long tail of martech proved very long: for every tool acquired, another new startup launched. The landscape’s creators noted that as big marketing platforms (like HubSpot or Salesforce) opened up marketplaces, it spurred even more specialized apps plugging into those ecosystems. By 2022, marketers were increasingly focused on integration – stitching together many niche apps via APIs – as the secret to managing such a vast stack. The takeaway: the martech industry was still in high-growth, innovative mode, a decade after its first boom.
2023 – AI takes center stage: The release of generative AI models (such as OpenAI’s GPT-3/ChatGPT in late 2022) sparked a new wave of martech innovation in 2023. Vendors across the spectrum rushed to embed AI capabilities into marketing tools – from AI copywriting and image generation for content creation, to AI-driven chatbots for customer service, to predictive analytics for personalization. This AI fever led to an explosion of new startups and features. By 2024, over 1.8 million AI projects existed on GitHub, and tens of thousands of developers were building AI-driven marketing apps. In effect, AI became the latest must-have layer in martech stacks. For marketers, 2023 was a turning point where tasks like writing email subject lines or segmenting audiences could be assisted (or even fully handled) by intelligent algorithms. This trend also raised new ethical and quality considerations – but there is broad expectation that AI-powered martech can dramatically improve efficiency and optimization in campaigns.
2024 – 14,000+ solutions (and counting): The 2024 martech landscape report counted 14,106 products, a ~27% increase from the prior year. Incredibly, that’s about 100× growth in available martech products since the first landscape in 2011. The industry’s compound annual growth rate in tool count has been roughly 42% over 13 years. Even more striking: the churn has been low – only ~2% of tools from 2023 dropped out by 2024 – indicating that many solutions manage to survive or get acquired rather than shut down. The landscape creators noted that the martech industry has a persistent “long tail.” About half of the products are from small firms or startups, each carving out a niche. While not all will thrive, new ones constantly emerge to replace those that fade. By 2024, marketers have shifted from asking “will martech consolidate?” to accepting that a heterogeneous, ever-evolving stack is the norm – with integration, data unification, and agile marketing operations being key to harnessing all this technology.
2025 (Forecast) – A data-driven, AI-powered future: Martech shows no signs of slowing. Global spending on marketing technology is projected to reach around $175–$180 billion in 2025, and continue growing at ~11% CAGR to nearly $300 billion by 2030. The number of solutions in the ecosystem may exceed 15,000 this year. Analysts predict a continued focus on AI, customer data, and privacy: more marketing workflows will be automated or augmented by AI, more brands will invest in first-party data platforms (especially as third-party cookies are phased out), and regulations (like Europe’s ePrivacy or new U.S. state laws) will demand even tighter data governance. In essence, marketing technology is moving toward smarter integration – using AI to connect the dots between channels and personalize experiences, while also ensuring compliance and consumer trust. As the martech industry passes the 100× growth mark since 2011, marketers in 2025 are challenged – and empowered – by an unprecedented arsenal of tech tools to win customers’ hearts in the digital age.
Sources: The timeline above was compiled from industry analyses, historical reports, and news sources, including Scott Brinker’s ChiefMartec reports on the growth of the martech landscape, historical accounts of CRM and marketing automation evolution, and coverage of major regulatory changes like GDPR. These references (and others cited inline) offer a deeper dive into each milestone of marketing technology’s evolution.