Email marketers and their higher-ups are planning to spend more on martech this year. And data privacy is top mind according to How Customer Data Platforms Are Helping Marketers Adapt to Change, a study by Tealium.

Of those polled, 64% list better product protections for customer data privacy as a goal in 2021. In addition, 53% cite more rapid acquisition of new customers and 48% list more personalized communications, an objective that would cover email.

Overall, 89% of marketers will spend more on tech this year than they did in 2020. And 32% will spend significantly more.

In addition, 57% expect to see ROI from those tools within six months. But only 30% expect to realize ROI that quickly from their customer data platforms.

With good reason — 62% say it is difficult integrating new third-party solutions into their stacks. And 53% strongly agree that their martech stacks are walled gardens, meaning they have tools from a single vendor that limits integration with other solutions.

The beleaguered travel industry is most likely to spend significantly more on tech — 42% say so. Next are hospitality (40%), healthcare (31%), retail (27%) and finance (22%). COVID-19 has changed marketing priorities, with these becoming more important:

• Managing ad spend across multiple digital channels — 59% 
• Acquiring new customers — 59% 
• Providing a unified customer experience across channels — 42% 
• Retaining existing customers — 42% 

And when it comes to CDPs, here are the most valuable functionalities:

• Visitor stitching/identity resolution 
• Ability to ingest online data from multiple channels 
• Ability to activate data in real-time by automatically triggering campaign modifications and other events 
• Ability to collect and transform data in real-time 

Tealium surveyed 300 U.S. marketers in November 2020.