The technological revolutions of recent decades have completely transformed the day-to-day tasks of marketers. Each layer of software built into the “MarTech stack” has become a fundamental marketing tool of the 21st Century. Unfortunately, MarTech still has significant blind spots and restrictions that are difficult to overcome. As marketers, knowing where tech can fail or is limited can be considered an essential career skill.
Here are some of the most frequently identified gaps in our technological capabilities:
Attribution Gaps and Poor Organization Generate Mixed Results
Marketers expect more specificity, improved analytics, and deeper attribution from
MarTech solutions, but rarely obtain all of the above. For example, one study found that 60% of marketers want detailed, actionable profiles on their most likely customers. Surprisingly, 85% of respondents spend more time managing technology than engaging directly with customers. Those two statistics paint a clear picture: Marketers want to understand their customers, but struggle to operate tech solutions that cannot provide precise results or attribution.
“Look at a Lumascape drawing of any of the advertising industries,” says Michael Hubbard of Media Two Interactive. “Every different layer represents another layer of margin that someone is making, and no one really knows if the data is unique or borrowed and white-labelled.”
When an already complex MarTech stack is poorly organized, it becomes difficult to analyze actionable content, data, and value of customer profiles. These problems are not just issues for marketers, but for customers who want to know how someone got their data or for clients who need precise explanations for a marketer’s actions. Thankfully, any attempt to improve your data attribution systems can enhance the value of associated profiles.
Automated Processes Require A Human Touch
Perhaps the technological limitation marketers understand best is that no matter what your automated platform claims to do, at some point, it will require human attention. Unfortunately, humans might be the most inefficiently used layer of the entire MarTech stack. Think of any occasion where employees are forced to sift through junk email or solicitations for incorrectly filed messages. Modern enterprise email clients are poorly equipped to deal with this problem, leading to a cascading negative impact on employee productivity and focus.
Email services aren’t the only service needing the human touch. Consider that 89% of marketers say the least favorite part of their job is organizing prospect data. Now, think back to that 85% of respondents who spend more time managing tech than engaging customers. If marketers who don’t like data devote the majority of their time managing it, what emotional energy will they have left when talking to customers?
MarTech services usually offer solutions that bypass human error by automating repetitive tasks. The problem, as marketing expert Frank Strong summarizes, is that marketing requires more than MarTech alone. Instead of treating marketing as a “glorified IT function,” humans should develop the skill of knowing when and how to focus their time. As of writing, this is something only experience – not technology – can teach us.
Poorly Integrated Layers Require Dedicated Engineers
Depending on who you ask, the average marketing company uses 16 to 28 different solutions in their MarTech stack. Major brands can manage up to 98 distinct applications. Even when each layer functions optimally, this makes the twisted roads of MarTech challenging to navigate. Unfortunately, these stacks rarely function optimally: essential layers may use incompatible data formats, legacy apps will fail to line up with existing company directives, and bugs threaten to tear the whole operation apart.
Marketers cannot duct-tape a MarTech solution together and expect a net increase in productivity. Choosing technology to integrate with your platform requires careful thought towards intent and compatibility. Sadly, too many teams seem to hope each integration will work out for the best. In fact, 80% of marketers believe vendors will fix errors for them, which may be impossible if the problem comes from an incompatible layer.
There are two options for addressing poor stack integration. The first is to take a lesson from mobile advertising and reduce bloat within your stack. The second – proposed by Casey Winters, Chief Product Officer at Eventbrite – is to have dedicated software engineers on your marketing team who can source and implement marketing requests. Until then, businesses will be stuck trying to force each incompatible MarTech layer into a functioning whole.
Perhaps one day, marketers will have the perfect all-in-one MarTech suite that generates clear results, optimizes human work tasks, and harmoniously integrates the entire stack. The bad news is we’ll be waiting a long time for it to arrive. In the meantime, being aware of MarTech blind spots is the first step to making sure your ad campaigns don’t stumble over them.