A successful stack consists of complementary marketing technologies and applications that share data to improve businesses’ ability to run effective marketing campaigns.
With cutting-edge technology development, marketing methods have evolved over the past several years. Marketing is critical to driving business growth. However, organizations need the right marketing approach for effective, fast, and efficient communication.
MarTech, or marketing technology, is a brand-new area of marketing that focuses on using cutting-edge technology to boost overall marketing effectiveness. It consists of various software, hardware, and information used for things like supporting, measuring, and analyzing marketing activities.
Modern businesses combine or stack various marketing technologies to provide users with a more customized, all-encompassing, and integrated user experience. The term “MarTech stack” refers to the collection of technologies to maximize online business performance and quickly achieve marketing goals.
A successful stack consists of complementary marketing technologies and applications. These would share data to improve the businesses’ ability to run effective marketing campaigns
It usually consists of applications, platforms like SaaS, social media tools, and marketing technology that marketers can use across multiple channels.
The Excess of a Good Thing
Frequently, marketing organizations add more technology and tools to their MarTech stack because they believe that more is better. With nearly 7,000 MarTech products currently on the market, using too many tools and technologies is common.
The MarTech stack can have a tower-like or even skyscraper-like appearance. This strategy often fails to deliver the desired results for such a sizable investment and resource allocation.
The right MarTech stack must prioritize quality if it is not around quantity. Most importantly, it concerns how an organization is structured and whom it targets. It depends on how much money is available to create, support, and grow that MarTech stack.
Important Elements in Every MarTech Stack
Every MarTech stack should include the following fundamental building blocks:
- To manage email marketing campaigns, use an email marketing platform.
- Automation software, such as a social media scheduling tool, to maximize the time spent on social media efforts.
- Hosting the website and blog with a content management system
- Tools for SEO that can help reach the target audience
- Utilizing advertising technology to reach new audiences and increase sales
- Mobile apps and devices for marketing
- CRM software and sales to work together and personalize the customer experience.
- Taking Special Needs and Marketing Goals Into Account
The best MarTech stack for a business is one that supports the needs and goals of the enterprise. It must have the resources to fulfill those demands and accomplish the goals.
A B2C business will also have a different MarTech stack than a B2B business. Each type of business uses other marketing channels to attract and retain customers.
Lead-Centered Format
A MarTech stack must include a digital marketing strategy if the focus is on converting the leads. Tools and technology that increase traffic and foster trust should be the main focus of the blueprint.
This blueprint includes resources for content creation, social media marketing, SEO and SEM, and targeted landing pages. Analytics tools should be available to evaluate the effectiveness of lead generation.
Journey Format
Organising a MarTech stack around the buyer’s journey is one preparation method. By doing this, the MarTech stack is in line with
- Increasing awareness
- Attracting fresh clients
- Keeping those clients over time
The stack can accomplish this by making the data and analysis accessible. From there, marketers can use additional MarTech to interact with these customers throughout the buying process.
White papers, how-to manuals, pertinent written and video content, remarketing, and social media marketing are some examples.
Platform Based Format
This MarTech stack allows the marketing department to keep its toolkit lean and effective. It’s the best organizational design for a scaled-back business. However, companies can scale as their marketing teams grow by relying on marketing platforms.
Marketers can then add MarTech building blocks to their strategy. These coud be applications that address new marketing channels or vehicles to platforms that already handle a variety of marketing tactics.
Role-based Format
Another choice for a MarTech stack is to organize the MarTech tools around particular marketing roles. By matching resources with strategies intended to meet those goals, this structural approach directly links to the marketing objectives.
Technology solutions for content, lead generation, social media marketing, and thought leadership, for instance, are all part of a MarTech stack.
The Crucial Elements of a Marketing Technology Stack
The upper part of the stack comprises more specialized and targeted tools that carry out particular marketing functions.
The lower part of the stack comprises foundational technologies that support the entire marketing technology infrastructure. In other words, the lower levels will influence the tools marketers choose for the upper layers. The stack should therefore be divided into three categories:
Fundamental, function-specific, and advanced components.
Essential MarTech elements
The website development and management services are basic MarTech components. They are frequently the first pieces of software marketers choose for the marketing tech mix.
The tools impact other sophisticated or supplementary tools through compatibility or integration. One example is the marketplace of integrated plug-ins and apps for content management systems (CMSs).
The following are the two main underlying MarTech elements:
CMS, or content management system:
A CMS is a software that allows website marketers to manage, create, and publish digital content.
Some companies do not use a CMS, they instead build their websites using custom code or a headless CMS that combines custom code and editable elements. This requires a lot more technical expertise.
CRM, customer relationship management:
A CRM system is platform brands use to manage interactions with customers and prospects using their data. CRM can track and define stages for leads as they progress through the sales funnel. This data can help with lead quality analysis and segmented email marketing campaigns.
Since these components can impact other business units, marketing is frequently not the only factor when choosing foundational MarTech elements.
MarTech components with a specific function
Function-specific MarTech components, are created specifically for marketing tasks. Consider how the team can integrate these components of the MarTech stack with other tools. Examples of MarTech features with specific functions are as follows:
Website analysis:
Web analytics tools provide more detailed data on your website’s traffic sources, page engagement, and overall conversion rates. As a result, these tools are crucial for comprehending the effectiveness of a website and marketing initiatives.
Email service providers (ESPs):
This offers email marketing services, such as sending and monitoring email campaigns, maintaining subscriber lists, and delivering analytics and campaign performance reporting.
Social media tools:
Social media platforms use analytics to optimize social media presence, edit and schedule posts, or track and compile data.
Search engine optimization (SEO):
While CMS is for SEO tasks, SEO tools can help increase organic traffic and search engine visibility.
These tools offer a variety of insights, including which keywords are pertinent to a company, which backlinks are appropriate, how marketers can optimize their pages, and their performance.
Ad-tech:
The tools and platforms used to create, carry out, and manage digital ad campaigns are called advertising technology or ad tech. Additionally, it includes creative analysis and performance-improving ad technologies like click fraud.
Also Read: Key Considerations for Marketers Before Building a MarTech Stack
Cutting-edge MarTech elements
Intricate and technical MarTech components help integrate activities across channels and elevate current media. Unlike function-specific components, their objective is not to open up new marketing channels.
Most of these tools can be expensive and technically complex. They are typically employed once the company has grown big enough. Then a skilled marketing team can handle them. These elements, include:
- Tools for marketing attribution
- Marketing automation and SMS
- Advanced ESPs
- customer data platform (CDP)
- TMS, or tag management system
The Evolution of MarTech Stack
Consider the MarTech stack to be a moving structure. The structure of the MarTech stack should change along with marketing objectives.
If a MarTech stack was once solely focused on leads, marketers need to adapt it to the upcoming marketing goal. However, many technology and tools may be similar for other purposes. Businesses then need to replace or add those platforms or applications that are more pertinent.
Create a technology roadmap drives the marketing strategy to effectively leverage marketing tools and platforms. If marketers already have the tools needed to achieve these objectives, they can always evaluate. Marketers must update what’s new or see if a platform can replace two or more tools to simplify the MarTech stack.
