6 MarTech Stack Challenges and How to Overcome Them

Technologies within a MarTech stack can be used to help marketing and creative teams operate efficiently; publish, distribute, and optimize content or deliverables; and accurately measure data and outcomes. As marketing has become more sophisticated, so too have the tools and software that teams utilize. Organizations now commonly use these technologies in a stack, but not all stacks are created equal. 

There are a number of MarTech challenges that can arise as organizations build their stacks and add to or optimize them over time. When assembling the ideal marketing technology stack, companies need to consider what tools already exist within their ecosystem, the internal expertise and know-how on the team, and how well new technology will integrate into the system. Obstacles can take the form of overinvesting in unnecessary tech or letting your tech dictate your strategies, rather than the other way around. It’s important for marketing and creative teams to not only stay aware of new features and technology for their tech stacks but also of trends in relevant industries to better understand how technology caters to their audiences. In this blog, we’ll take a look at common mistakes or challenges that organizations encounter when building or optimizing their MarTech Stack and how organizations can avoid or remedy these situations.

MarTech Stack Challenges

When discovering how to build a MarTech stack, it’s important to consider restrictions within your budget, the skills of your existing team members, and other MarTech challenges that may arise.

Overinvestment in Tools

Without the proper research, teams can end up overspending either on tools that are more expensive than what they need or multiple tools that each perform very specific tasks. For example, the items that account for the two greatest consumers of a marketing budget are the website (11.7%) and digital commerce (10.9%). Many website platforms offer built-in eCommerce functionality, which means that many organizations could be spending much less on digital commerce by more strategically integrating their digital commerce strategies within their CMS.

Marketing tools can sometimes be purchased without the team fully understanding the capabilities and integrations with existing tech. Without having thorough comprehension of the value of the tool being considered, it is nearly impossible to ensure it’s the right one to achieve your goals. Working with professionals who are experts on MarTech tools can help teams determine which tools are best suited for their goals and existing expertise while not overpaying for the marketing tech they need.

Automation as an Afterthought

When teams are caught up in the bells and whistles of marketing automation technology, they can often ignore some of the best practices of automation. These include analyzing consumer behavior insights, incorporating common tasks into your project workflow, and email list segmentation. In fact, 78% of marketers say that the list segmentation feature of marketing automation is one that they can’t live without. By treating automation as a pillar of your marketing strategy, rather than an afterthought, you can better harness the power of automation and integrate it thoroughly throughout the full extent of your tech stack.

Poor or No MarTech Integrations

What’s the point of having the best tools if they don’t work or communicate with one another?

Marketing technology integrations save time, money, and resources by allowing teams to harness the full extent of their tech stack. With 26% of marketing budgets being spent on marketing technology, it’s essential that teams are getting everything they can out of the solutions in which they’re investing. Organizations that leverage the right marketing integrations improve their delivery speed by 78%. Also, marketing leaders are 1.3 times as likely as mainstream marketers to say that data and analytics define how they integrate data and related technologies.

However, utilizing integrations to their fullest extent is easier said than done. In fact, 52% of marketers say MarTech stack integration is the most challenging barrier to harnessing marketing technology trends. Working with MarTech integration experts can help identify opportunities for integration and perform the installation, integration, and training processes.

Stack Bloat

As new technology continues to emerge, it can be tempting for teams to always want the next best thing, creating a bloated stack with far more tools than are actually necessary. When creating and optimizing your tech stack, think of it as one whole system of technology rather than several separate tools. By first establishing exactly what tasks need to be accomplished by your entire tech stack rather than adding on more tools as new challenges and features come up, teams can avoid a bloated stack of partially used technology. 

If you’re noticing that your existing technology stack may already be bloated, take a step back to evaluate your entire MarTech stack and identify any functional overlap between different tools. It can be difficult for internal team members to see the full picture without biases, so working with MarTech integration experts can help determine opportunities to remediate stack bloat among your technologies.

Team Knowledge and Expertise

Teams are often faced with deficiencies in knowledge and expertise when bringing on new technology. The learning curve for new tools can take a long time to outgrow and bring all necessary team members up to speed. Leaders will often recruit talent based on the technology, rather than selecting technology based on the experience of their team. Gartner, however, recommends prioritizing marketing generalists who can help meet quick demands, rather than individuals who mainly specialize in one technology that may become irrelevant shortly. Working with marketing technology experts to onboard, install, and train new tools can help tailor your tech stack to the knowledge of your team and reduce the learning curve for new products.

Channel-centric vs. Customer-centric

When teams rely heavily on tech stacks built in silos, it can result in a narrow, channel-centric view. For example, if your social media marketing platform doesn’t allow users to schedule posts for specific times, but your team is trying to target audiences in another time zone, your technology is limiting the demographics you can feasibly reach. Rather than adapting your campaigns to match the technology in your stack, teams should ensure that the technology they bring on can adapt and scale to their customer-centric goals.

Learn How to Build Your MarTech Stack from the Pros

Marketing technology is evolving so rapidly that it can be difficult for teams to manage robust, disconnected tech stacks. Working with experts in marketing technology and integrations, the team at IO Integration can help determine the best tools for your tech stack, install them, integrate them, and train your team on how to get the most out of them. See how IO Integration can optimize your MarTech strategy by speaking with an expert today.