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According to the latest Gartner CFO survey, 53% of chief financial officers plan to increase marketing budgets by at least 3% this year. The majority of marketers (60%), however, say marketing technology stacks are too complicated to use, with 20% saying it is “more complex than a black hole.”
In 2023, companies shouldn’t rely solely on a single marketing tool to boost their performance. Instead, they should integrate a complex marketing platform (yes, it could be tricky) that uses different components. Especially at this time, when 92% of U.S. consumers cut back spending and some major retailers are preparing for a period of slower sales.
Here’s what to keep in mind during the process of choosing and using martech stacks.
The basics
A martech stack is a set of tools, platforms and software used by a marketing team to boost the efficiency and productivity of marketing efforts. It integrates data from various sources in one place and is used in customer communications, provides a more personalized customer experience, and obtains comprehensive and precise analytics. When these things all come together, a martech stack empowers you to optimize your marketing efforts and boost business performance.
Depending on the business type, marketing goals and budget, a martech stack may include more than a dozen components such as:
- Customer data platform (CDP) for collecting and operationalizing data
- Customer relationship management (CRM) software
- Communication platforms and gateways (i.e. mobile app backend, web push messaging software, messengers, text messaging gateway)
- Personalization and order value tweaking tools (i.e. built-in dynamic blocks, pop-up windows, widgets, loyalty programs)
- AI/machine learning-driven tools and data warehouse for storing data used for analytics
A single tool is never enough
The key idea of building a martech stack is to track the entirety of a customer journey—starting with the very first touch point—and instantly adjust the offer and experience based on this data.
The modern customer journey can include various touch points: website, mobile app, offline stores, email and push messaging, customer service hotline and in-store communication. Therefore, by using your martech stack across all these touch points, you can improve the quality of data-driven decisions and make the customer experience much smoother.