Scott Brinker – author of the Chief Marketing Technologist blog and program chair of the upcoming MarTech conference (March 21-22 in San Francisco) – produces a marketing technology landscape infographic each year, which plots the logos of most marketing technology vendors by category and function. Brinker’s goal is to illustrate the continuing transformation of Marketing into a technology-based discipline.

The supergraphic depicts explosive growth in terms of the number of Martech vendors (and categories): The 2014 version recognized 947 vendors; the 2015 version included 1,876; and Brinker says the 2016 version – not published yet – will include an even larger sample of the roughly 4,000 marketing technology companies that he now estimates exist worldwide.

Yet one of Brinker’s most interesting predictions for 2016 is that the number of active vendors will actually finally plateau.

The space is crowded, consolidation is happening, and the VC appetite for unproven technology startups is cooling; however, adoption of marketing technology – particularly among leading vendors – will continue to grow as Martech becomes more mainstream.

This is certainly evidenced by the growing number of marketers using sites like TrustRadius to evaluate Martech products. It’s also sure to be a topic at the MarTech conference – where TrustRadius is a media partner.

Here’s the visual for his prediction:

At the conference, marketers and tech-savvy professionals will come together to talk about how they’re integrating technology into their strategy–and yes, technology vendors will get to pitch to those marketers. This year’s topics include: applying the Agile approach to marketing; achieving a unified data profile of the customer; managing the customer experience; account-based marketing; customer marketing; and how to build your marketing tech stack.

Join us at MarTech 2016 Conference

We also know you’ll be hearing a lot of different vendor pitches during the conference—if you plan to talk to one of the vendors exhibiting at the conference, make sure to check out reviews on TrustRadius to see what their customers are saying about their product and how it stacks up against competitors before heading for San Francisco.

We’ll also be covering the event, so please make sure to check our site regularly for the latest updates.