What is MarTech? Marketing tech­no­logy in a nutshell

MarTech stands for marketing tech­no­logy and refers to online and offline tools that are used to implement marketing strategies. Different MarTech tools are brought together into a MarTech stack. The aim of MarTech is to automate and optimise marketing strategies and customer journeys.

Suc­cess­ful marketing has a lot to do with efficient tech­no­logy and omni-channel support. MarTech heralds a new un­der­stand­ing of marketing strategies. In a time when di­git­al­isa­tion has long since taken over and the e-commerce market is growing, marketing teams should seriously consider adopting MarTech tools, if they haven’t already. The software helps to automate and connect your marketing processes. Together with AdTech, MarTech enables a flexible, scalable multi-channel approach for better target-group ori­ent­ated reach, increased customer loyalty and analysis of buying behaviour.

MarTech and AdTech come hand in hand. While they’re not the same thing, marketing experts advise anyone using the one to also use the other. The sim­il­ar­it­ies and dif­fer­ences between AdTech and MarTech are apparent in the names them­selves, marketing and ad­vert­ising. Just like marketing goals can’t real­ist­ic­ally be achieved without ad­vert­ising, ad­vert­ising hardly ever leads to any real success without a marketing strategy behind it.

AdTech includes tech­no­lo­gies and tools like demand-side platforms (DSP), supply-side platforms (SSP) and agency trading desks (ATD). AdTech is par­tic­u­larly important for the automated buying and selling of ad space and ads in the context of pro­gram­mat­ic ad­vert­ising, pro­gram­mat­ic buying, display marketing and real time ad­vert­ising.

On the other hand, MarTech serves primarily as a found­a­tion and pre-requisite for using AdTech tools. That being said, MarTech goes beyond automated processes aimed at a large reach. It also includes per­son­al­ised marketing, customer re­la­tion­ship marketing, B2B and B2C com­mu­nic­a­tion, and one-to-one customer retention. This makes it more than just software tools, it’s a whole strategic approach to digital marketing solutions.

There’s a whole range of tools and tech­niques behind MarTech. No marketing mix or struc­tured marketing strategy would be complete without the found­a­tions and most important com­pon­ents of MarTech.

Or­gan­ising and managing your marketing strategy are some of the most important aspects of MarTech and marketing as a whole. Modern, high-per­form­ance man­age­ment systems ensure more con­nectiv­ity and auto­ma­tion in areas like customer re­la­tion­ship man­age­ment, product and talent man­age­ment, col­lect­ing and cleaning customer data, budget planning, and man­age­ment systems for sales and logistics. With the right MarTech tools, you can ef­fi­ciently save, process, and evaluate data from customers and partners, implement ad campaigns in a flexible and scalable way, and optimise your marketing endeavors using stat­ist­ics.

One very important aspect of marketing, es­pe­cially multi-channel marketing and omni-channel marketing, is in­teg­ra­tion on social media. The most important things to look into are social media tools, strategies for social media marketing, content marketing tools, user generated content and social media ad­vert­ising.

Optimal reach and scalab­il­ity are key com­pon­ents of every marketing concept. But reach isn’t just about getting your message to as many people as possible, in the spirit of the one-to-many principle. The one-to-one principle is also important for building trust with your customers. Take a look at the following tech­niques:

• In­creas­ing customer retention with news­let­ter marketing
• In­teg­rat­ing email marketing trends
• Gen­er­at­ing more vis­ib­il­ity by using SEO tools
• Optimise your SEO content
• Analysing buying behavior and target groups, and then using buyer personas to reach them
• Eval­u­at­ing and pre­dict­ing customer behaviour using pre­dict­ive analytics

Data plays an important role in the planning and op­tim­iz­a­tion of marketing concepts. You can use tools for measuring and eval­u­at­ing customer and per­form­ance data to adapt your strategies or integrate new tools. If you need help in regularly eval­u­at­ing and op­tim­iz­ing your campaigns and concepts, look into measuring success in content marketing, machine learning, data mining tools and Google SEO tools.

AdTech is one of the most important tools in your MarTech toolbox. Even though MarTech and AdTech are two different things, you can’t achieve suc­cess­ful marketing without AdTech tools, ad exchanges and ad networks. The automated real-time display of ads using pro­gram­mat­ic buying, real-time bidding and real-time ad­vert­ising can take the form of search engine ad­vert­ising (SEA) or display and video ads.

You can tell how important marketing tech­no­logy is by how much money busi­nesses spend on AdTech and MarTech tools. Here are some of the most important tools for a digital marketing strategy:

There are various systems for data asset man­age­ment (DAM) and product in­form­a­tion man­age­ment (PIM) that help you to collect and manage internal and external data and assets from business processes, customer com­mu­nic­a­tion and contact with other platforms. Data man­age­ment systems are thus an important part of any data strategy.

To integrate the data you’ve collected into your marketing struc­tures and improve your concepts, you’ll need data analysis tools. Col­lect­ing data at different points in the customer journey is es­pe­cially important for in­ter­pret­ing buying behaviour and trends and adapting your marketing plan ac­cord­ingly. Some popular analytics tools are Google Analytics, Webtrends and Adobe Analytics.

The marketing solutions available to you will depend on the resources you have. Marketing resource man­age­ment (MRM) can be used to ef­fi­ciently plan and structure your resources. Software systems help you to organise and allot your marketing resources and expand on them if necessary. It touches on areas ranging from human resources to workflows to ad­min­is­tra­tion and resource control.

Content man­age­ment systems (CMS) and tools for digital ex­per­i­ence man­age­ment can be used to manage and implement content marketing, multi-channel marketing, and user-generated content. They can help you make sure your content reaches its target groups online and offline and on various channels. It’s also advisable to integrate customer journey mapping and touch­point analyses of the customer journey.

CRM (customer re­la­tion­ship man­age­ment)

Systems for customer re­la­tion­ship man­age­ment make it possible to enter, evaluate and track new and existing data on com­mu­nic­a­tion, buying behaviour, interests and visits/clicks. Efficient CRM also offers many ad­vant­ages for future campaigns, per­son­al­ised customer com­mu­nic­a­tion, the analysis of leads and customers, workflow auto­ma­tion, social media in­teg­ra­tion and increased customer en­gage­ment. Microsoft Dynamics, Sales­force and HubSpot are the biggest players.

You can use software- and database-supported marketing auto­ma­tion to automate customer-related business processes in marketing and sales. This includes user profiles and user data, in­di­vidu­al­ised and per­son­al­ised customer com­mu­nic­a­tion, expanding on potential leads and strength­en­ing customer loyalty. Two useful systems/platforms are Marketo and Pardot.

Content marketing on social media requires co­ordin­a­tion across the different social media channels, like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. There are various tools to help you create content, share and organise it and boost its vis­ib­il­ity. Popular tools include Hootsuit and Facelift.

A MarTech stack is a toolbox con­sist­ing of various connected MarTech tools for your marketing concept. Exactly which tools and solutions are in a stack will depend on your par­tic­u­lar goals, re­quire­ments and the product or service you offer. Tools that are optimally in­teg­rated, connected and syn­chron­ised can lead to an increase in profits and better customer retention. Digital asset man­age­ment (DAM) is at the heart of a MarTech stack, as you’ll need to collect your most important assets, data, and content and organise it at various touch points on the customer journey. Your marketing team should also be organised around your MarTech stack.

The most popular MarTech companies offering versatile, useful tools include:

• CRM: HubSpot CRM, Sales­force, Microsoft Dynamics
• Content creation: Con­tent­Grow, Con­tent­pep­per, Butter CMS
• Email marketing: SendPulse, SmartMail, Inbox Army
• Social media man­age­ment: Meet Edgar, Sprinklr, Hootsuit
• Digital ad­vert­ising: Criteo, Conklin Media, WebFX
• SEO analysis: SpyFu, Social SEO, Higher­Vis­ib­il­ity, DMA
• Data analytics: Google Analytics, etracker, Adobe Analytics
• Data asset man­age­ment (DAM): Canto, Adstream, Rubrik, Bynder
• Product in­form­a­tion man­age­ment (PIM): Pimcore, Catsy, Pimero, Eggheads, Stibo
• Marketing resource man­age­ment: Brand­maker, OpenAsset, Aprimo, MARMIND, Percolate

MarTech is a part of any holistic marketing strategy and should always be set up sus­tain­ably and with the long term in mind. Flexible and reliable digital software solutions can allow you to optimise marketing processes, cement your position on the market and set yourself apart from the com­pet­i­tion. You’ll also benefit from increased reach and vis­ib­il­ity thanks to in­teg­rated AdTech tools.

The most important ad­vant­ages of MarTech are:

• Auto­ma­tion of marketing strategies and solutions
• Omni-channel and mul­tichan­nel approach
• Gen­er­at­ing leads and sales
• Ef­fect­ively measuring and eval­u­at­ing customer behaviour for op­tim­ising marketing processes
• One-to-one com­mu­nic­a­tion and per­son­al­ized marketing for increased customer retention
• Increased reach thanks to SEO and SEA