Marketing Technology has become a standard share of our vocabulary. In fact, according to Google, it is examined more than 10,000 times a month in the United States alone. But when it comes to MarTech and advertising technology, these terms can mean many things. Let’s take a look at what MarTech actually means, why it’s important, and what challenges marketers face today.
What is Marketing Technology (MarTech)?
Marketing technology, also known as MarTech, defines a set of software and tools that help achieve marketing goals or objectives. When a marketing team uses a marketing technology group, it is called a marketing technology stack. MarTech has become a staple of digital marketing movements, but it can also be used to optimize marketing efforts across any marketing channel.
Difference between MarTech and AdTech
MarTech can sometimes be confused with Adtech. The difference among these programs is similar to the difference between marketing and advertising. While Martech denotes technology that helps create, communicate, and deliver offers, advertising technology is used solely to influence consumer behavior by promoting offers. For example, client relationship management (CRM) software is a marketing technology, and social advertising platforms are an advertising technology.
The Importance of Technology in Marketing
In 2012, Gartner projected that by 2017, CMOs would devote more to technology than CIOs. Although this claim was initially highly controversial, the spending gap between these parties has narrowed significantly over the years. That’s because technology is playing an increasingly important role in marketing, especially in aiding efforts like attribution and marketing spend allocation.
As the marketing technology background continues to evolve, marketers may be confused about which option to choose. For this reason, marketers must ensure that they invest in marketing technology solutions that will drive greater growth for their organization.
Basics of Marketing Technologies
Which technology is best for marketers to invest in largely depends on who they are selling to. For example, does your organization sell products to other businesses (B2B) or consumers (B2C)? While your organization’s market will have a big impact on which marketing technologies will be most actual, all marketers should consider implementing the following technologies:
Marketing Attribution Software
As John Wanamaker (1838-1922), a famous American businessman, said: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the worry is that I don’t know which half.” More than a century later, this problem has still not been solved for many companies. Old attribution models or failure to account for both offline and online success are causing companies to miss chances. Joining with the right marketing attribution software can help solve this problem.
Advertising Newsletter
In his book The Frequent Seller, Ryan Holiday discusses the importance of email and developing those relationships directly with customers. Since emails are not affected by algorithm changes or trends, it is one of the best platforms to reach your target audience. Reflect this: In a recent survey, more than 50 percent of respondents in the US admitted to checking their email more than ten times a day. Email is an effective way for makes to reach customers.
Content Management System
This technology can improve your website and blog. With 88 percent of consumers researching goods online before making a purchase, investing in a quality website is a must. Your website is the foundation of the break of your digital policy, as marketing and advertising clients will drive consumers there.
Customer Service Software
This part of the marketing tech stack would focus on improving how customers interact with your brand, whether by testing which messages are most effective or personalizing their involvement. This includes software complex in A/B testing.
Customer Relationship Management Software
This is additionally common for B2B companies that focus on lead groups, but these platforms can help your company manage leads. CRMs can control where leads are in the funnel and assess opportunity levels.
Marketing Tech Predictions
Over time, marketing tech will continue to change and develop more important to modern marketing campaigns. However, marketing tech will have to adapt to the changing marketing environment. Here are some trends marketers should be aware of before investing in marketing technology:
- Reducing marketing budgets: Gartner predicts that marketing department budgets will level off. This will require companies to justify the return on investment in marketing and expenses.
- Focus on retention: Attracting a new client costs five times more than retaining an existing one. Marketers will begin to shift their focus not only to acquiring new customers but also to building relationships with customers.
- The importance of understanding marketing costs: According to Gartner’s 2018 Marketing Tech Study, only 18 percent of marketers understood multi-touch attribution (MTA) in 2016. That number increased to 52 percent in 2018, where respondents said they use MTA to measure advertising effectiveness… However, the MTA is limited to only verifying online value. With marketers under constant pressure to prove ROI across all channels, marketers need to adopt consistent marketing measurements.
- More innovation: There is an interesting dichotomy between recognized enterprise software companies investing in cloud solutions and up-and-coming startups. This increased competition will lead to more innovation in marketing. Additionally, with the advent of the Internet of Things and the continued development of marketing artificial intelligence, marketing tech companies will be able to provide clients with more robust solutions that will help marketers connect directly with their audiences and deliver ROI.
Problems of Marketing Technology
Implementing, maintaining, and optimizing your organization’s marketing tech is a challenging and streamlined process. Instead, organizations must prepare to overcome several key challenges before they can fully realize the assistance of marketing tech.
Choosing the Right MarTech Platform
Choosing the right platform is difficult because choosing a platform goes beyond finding the right technology—it extends to finding the right partner. Integrating a new system is often challenging, and the process of working with internal and external investors to implement the technology can lead to unexpected disruptions.
Changing The Company Culture
For many organizations, changing the way marketing works can be a huge challenge. Working with colleagues to train them to use new platforms and workflows adds complexity to day-to-day doings. As Peter Drucker said, “Nation eats strategy for mealtime.” Appropriately, changing corporate culture to embrace marketing technology is often a major hurdle for companies.
Processing Too Much Data
In today’s marketing environment, there is a lot of data. Encrypting data to determine what is important and what is not can be a huge challenge for your organization. Choosing the right vendor and working with data scientists to analyze large volumes of data can help point your marketing department in the right direction.
The Importance of Flexibility
The main goal of any marketing tech plan is to provide flexibility. Agile policy promotes a project management process that combines best engineering practices with business development and utilizes continuous communication and adaptation.
Agility allows marketers to be more agile and deliver more frequent and shorter cycles of action. While Agile is traditionally associated with product development, applying the same mentality to marketing can yield amazing results, especially when distributing products to your internal team members. Ninety-three percent of CMOs who use agile strategies say it has helped them get ideas, campaigns, and products to market faster.
What Does It Mean To Be A Marketing Tech Today?
Marketing technologists are attractive and increasingly important in today’s setting. They use technology to solve problems their marketing teams face. Good marketing technologists do the following:
- Use data to help your teams develop better campaigns and more creative solutions.
- Analysis of software capabilities in accordance with the needs of the organization
- Function as a hybrid of marketing and IT
- Move away from legacy organizational systems as needed.
Investing in marketing technology will become increasingly important as the consumer landscape changes. With this in mind, marketing sides must ensure they are building their marketing technology stacks with solutions that deliver ROI for the organization while minimizing barriers to deployment or adoption that can extend the time to value.
