5 ‘must-dos’ when reviewing your martech stack

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It’s been a tough year for many consumers. The rising cost of living has people paring back personal and household spending. This makes marketing teams more important in the battle for customer loyalty and share-of-wallet. And, just like consumers, they are trying to do more with fewer resources. Doing this means ensuring maximum efficiency in their campaigns and media planning. That requires reviewing the martech stack and the bewildering range of micro-payments that vendors may charge.

So, what does a marketing technology review look like? How should teams go about finding efficiencies in the platforms they’re using? Here are some of the most common challenges faced when doing this, as well as tips for companies looking to evaluate their technology partnerships.

The challenge of a complex tech landscape

Despite the proliferation of touchpoints with consumers, there’s no way of achieving digital communication with a single technology partner. While this has long been true, the increase in privacy regulation means campaign measurement and activation will be more difficult than ever.

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As a result, brands may need new platforms for marketing measurement and activation. On the measurement side, there are platforms for multi-touch attribution, media mix modeling, web analytics, data clean rooms and brand verification. These platforms may force you to use reporting, business intelligence, ETL and data visualization platforms to centralize all this data and make sense of the full picture. In the activation space, brands are using DMPs, CDPs and everything in between. And, to top it all off, many brands already have more than one of a certain type of platform.

Under the surface, of course, there are practical reasons for platform overlap. The crowded industry has players with specific USPs, access to unique datasets that no others can boast of, and importantly, an interconnected ecosystem that makes it seamless to extend from a single platform to a full range of products. Unfortunately, this makes it even more difficult to painlessly cut ties with a platform in the interest of increased efficiency. 

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What you need to consider

Although there’s no copy-and-paste approach to reviewing your tech stack, here are five key tips for the journey.

1: Be commercially driven. When marketing teams are challenged with cutting expenditures on their technology partners, they should first identify a prioritized set of commercial objectives. Once this is in place, it becomes more straightforward to justify investments or create a transition plan for cutting down. 

2: Be ambitious. With today’s abundance of cloud capabilities and the right talent, in-housing operations are not as far away as you might think. 

3: Be pragmatic. That shiny new platform may be attractive, but that doesn’t make it the right solution. Before adding a platform, thoroughly explore other technical solutions — especially processes using an existing architecture.

4: Be thorough. Large-scale changes require plenty of planning, onboarding and training. Don’t launch into a change in data architecture without fully thinking through the implications for all users.

5: Show leadership. Digital transformation can be uncomfortable for teams who are used to a status quo. Only by getting buy-in from senior leadership, and bringing all stakeholders along for the journey, can you set your organization up for success. 

There will never be a ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to renewing and developing the tech stack. The routes you choose to take can vary and inevitably rely on having key conversations about what is seen as a success, and what is the most effective solution for your business. Take time, explore all your options, and don’t be afraid to run multiple routes of action to ensure you’re making the most appropriate tech decision.

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