Growth startup (11/12): what is martech stack and how to choose the right tools review

This is the penultimate post of this series of growth marketing, based on my learnings from CXL’s Growth Marketing minidegree. :(

I must say I’ll miss this once it’s done - and I hope you’ll feel the same. ;)

Last Sunday, we focused on growth program management:

• The levers for accelerating growth,
• The multiple silos of growth,
• The growth team,
• Cross-functionality,
• Acquisition and engagement,
• Growth team in a large organization,
• The growth meeting,
• Experiments implementation,
• Testing management,
• Tools.

GROWTH STARTUP SERIES PREVIOUS POSTS:

Growth startup (1/12): open-minded growth vs. traditional marketing review

Growth startup (2/12): building a customer-centric growth process review

Growth startup (3/12): running growth experiments with research and testing review

Growth startup (4/12): conversion research review

Growth startup (5/12): mastering a/B tests review

Growth startup (6/12): attribution models review

Growth startup (7/12): conversions review

Growth startup (8/12): product messaging review

Growth startup (9/12): email marketing review

Growth startup (10/12): growth program management review

Today we gonna talk about martech (marketing technology) stack and how to choose the right tools.

Let’s dive into it. ;)

After all, what is a martech stack?

That’s a great question. Mostly because we’re all immersed in a lot of tools, trying to not get drowned. It’s hard because sometimes we don’t even know how to start.

I lost count of the times that customers asked me if the tools they have are enough or which tools they should get to have their marketing strategy minimally functional.

That’s why I think it’s better to let an expert tells us what martech stack actually is:

“Now, marketing tech is not just inside the marketing organization; it also includes your support tools, your sales tools, and even your developer tools. So, I want you to understand that you have data about your customers everywhere, and all of this data is important. From a marketing perspective, you should obviously be communicating with your customers in the most personalized way.”

Dan McGaw, CEO of McGaw.io

A lot more than just tools

As with everything on digital marketing, the martech stack is not as simple as you may think. It’s not about having a lot of tools or some fancy ones. It goes beyond marketing silos since you must consider your customers’ journey (as you always better do on digital marketing).

Martech stack goes through:

• Marketing tools,
• Sales tools,
• Developer tools,
• Support tools.

It’s very difficult considering the growing number of tools available.

According to chiefmartec.com, the marketing technology landscape grew up to a total of 8,000 martech solutions, increasing from 947 tools in 2014 to 8,000 in 2020, a growth of 744.77% (see the image below).

It's crazy. It is huge.

And it's something to think about before you go shopping.

Where to start?

One way to get things clearer when evaluating the martech stack is to think about the customer's journey. And how marketing tools can help consumers and your brand to live better experiences (consumers) and reap better insights and results (your brand).

It means that when thinking about the marketing stack, you can think about it as a funnel:

• Marketing planning,
• attract,
• convert,
• nurture,
• sales close,
• analytics and automation.

In other words: what solutions will support you from marketing to CRM, passing through sales?

"I build my marketing technology stack through a framework similar to the buyer’s journey, so the categories should seem familiar to you."

Ryan Ruud, founder of Lake One

Why is it important to think about the customer journey?

Stop to think a little about your strategy cycle... It basically starts with PPC campaigns, actions on social networks, and efforts to generate organic traffic.

And it advances with nutrition until it consolidates with amusement on CRM, in addition to many other initiatives that you can take.

In each of these steps, you will probably need different tools that need to connect, either natively or through APIs (or even with solutions similar to Zapier).

It is also about a journey, but a journey of data. The data that you needs from end to end in your strategy so that you can make the best decisions for your brand.

Getting started with your stack

McGaw can help us here, sharing insights about getting started with a martech stack:

• Create a list of all the tools you are currently using and how they are being used.
• Design a wire diagram of how these tools are connected (think of your data pipeline).
• Define three goals to accomplish with your stack (increase conversions or reduce churn, for example).

But there is a reflection to be made: the martech landscape is full of new companies and startups that offer very useful solutions. But what happens when those companies cannot survive or are acquired by other giants in the industry?

In such cases, you can have a headache if you are heavily dependent on these solutions that either cease to exist or are adapted because they were purchased by large companies.

Therefore, the choice of a tool should not be rushed.

"A wonderfully symbiotic relationship is emerging here. The major public martech companies have come to realize that this legion of long-tail builders and entrepreneurs can be their allies. The stability of a major platform as the backbone of a marketing stack augmented with a set of specialized apps designed to plug deeply into that platform is a powerful combination."

Scott Brinker, editor of chiefmartec.com

Mistakes to avoid

We can find some comfort on a CXL’s blog post about 12 mistakes to avoid with your martech stack:

1. Not thinking about taxonomy first,
2. Buying too many tools,
3. Confusing GTM (Google Tag Manager) and Segment (your customer data infrastructure),
4. Having unrealistic expectations about what tools can deliver,
5. Not using tag manage,
6. Not using a customer data platform,
7. Doing too much reporting inside the CRM,
8. Not using the tool,
9. Treating tracking and automation as an afterthought, instead of a pillar, of marketing strategy,
10. Setting up a single source of truth,
11. Having siloed data instead of data pipelines,
12. Leaky funnels.

See you next Sunday. ;)

EXTRA MILE

grow your growth marketing

• Do your own martech stack assessment to find out where you are and what you may need to strengthen your martech stack.
• Do a martech tool impact assessment to get a better sense of the real importance of the tools you already have.