Just seven years ago, 47% of U.S. marketers ranked creativity as the number one factor for driving marketing strategy. Sorry Don Draper, but eCommerce has flipped that script. By 2022, 56% of marketers say technology and creativity will play equal roles in driving their strategy; and 30% rank technology first.
Marketing technology, aka “Martech,” is the largest slice of today’s marketing budgets (29% on average according to Gartner). With nearly 7,000 businesses offering Martech solutions, deciding which tools will drive your client’s marketing strategy is critical to success.
But first, what is a Martech stack and why does it matter?
Simply put, a Martech stack is a collection of technologies that marketers use to carry out their marketing strategy. Choosing the right tools and organizing them into a logical flow can actually multiply the value of each individual tool.
As website designers, developers and marketers, you can help clients make the right Martech decisions and stack those tools in an integrated solution that enables them to execute, analyze and improve their marketing strategy.
The right Martech stack can help them achieve new levels of effectiveness by improving staff collaboration, measuring the impact of marketing activities, driving more efficient marketing spend and reaching customers in new ways.
The 3 types of Martech tools that belong in your client’s stack
While there’s no one-size-fits-all Martech stack for businesses, the necessary tools fall into three key general categories:
· Tools to drive traffic
· Tools to engage visitors
· Tools to analyze and optimize
Those tools will vary greatly from client to client, but industry experts point out they represent the foundational technologies for Martech stacks in most B2C and B2B businesses.
Tools to drive traffic
Driving traffic to client websites is essential for conversions. So it follows that effective marketing automation has to drive traffic to boost sales, get bookings or generate the right leads. That’s easier said than done: in a global study, 61% of marketers rated generating quality traffic and lead conversion as their biggest challenges. You can’t get more conversions without plenty of traffic, and that’s why it’s important to use tools designed for reaching your client’s target audience.
1. Google Ads: Google search, video and display ads
If your client is looking to drive the right kind of traffic to its site, go directly to Google’s search, video, and display ads. Given its spectacular reach (more than 246 million visitors) and traffic (3.5 billion daily interactions), it’s been said there’s no such thing as an unsuccessful Google Ads campaign. Still, Google Ads will help your clients analyze and refine their ads to reach even more people and help hit their marketing goals.
2. Sprout Social: streamlined social media management
Currently, 54% of social media users research products on social sites. However, 85% of business owners aren’t sure which social media tools to use to reach them. Sprout Social lets your client manage their social media strategy from one place. They can schedule posts at the best times, streamline their publishing processes, and turn social data into key insights to drive traffic and better connect with their audience.
3. SEO tools: Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz, Conductor
Improved SEO helps boost a site’s visibility on search engines, which is essential to reaching more potential customers. Content is a key ingredient. When your client’s site has engaging content that’s aligned with best SEO practices, it’s more likely to attract the targeted audience. With these tools, you can drive organic traffic to your client sites:
Ahrefs is a set of SEO tools that help websites increase their search traffic, conduct detailed research on their business competitors and monitor trends in their specific market.
SEMrush is a content platform that lets your clients quickly track the online performance of their articles, blog posts and other content, and it helps them create editorial plans featuring SEO-friendly content.
Moz offers tools to help your clients discover the best keywords for their site, improve their content and link building and access in-depth research to build SEO visibility.
Conductor Searchlight is a content intelligence platform that produces insights into customer intent along their purchase journey that lead to engaging content, increased site traffic and better marketing ROI.
4. Criteo: personalized ad retargeting
Only 4% of website visitors actually make a purchase, which is why retargeting the other 96% is so widely done. Trouble is, many people find retargeted ads annoying. Criteo used its own AI-based technology to create retargeted ads with a difference—they’re hyper-personalized based on visitor preferences and shopping behavior. They even feature designs and CTAs optimized for each visitor, and are delivered to them when the visitor is most likely to convert. That means retargeted visitors aren’t getting irritated by receiving the same ad over and over; instead, they’re receiving unique dynamically personalized ads that have a greater chance of conversion.
5. Demandbase: personalized online advertising
Account-based marketing, aka key account marketing, is skyrocketing in popularity: 92% of B2B marketers rate it “extremely” or “very” important. Demandbase, a B2B ad targeting and personalization platform, is an ABM specialist. It can help your clients deliver personalized ads to the right people at specific companies across the web. To turn viewers into customers, the platform can be used to sharpen targeting based on data such as industry, revenue, customer status and products purchased.
Tools to engage customers
Once your client’s website is drawing crowds of visitors, how do you keep them there so you can convert them into paying customers? That’s tougher today than ever, because online consumers are well-versed in the ways of eCommerce and have become demanding, impatient and harder to please. Studies show websites have 15 seconds to capture their visitors’ attention before they flit off to a competitor’s site. This next set of tools can help you better engage today’s e-shoppers.
1. HubSpot: marketing automation
HubSpot is an inbound marketing and sales tool that allows your client to handle social media marketing, content management, website analytics, SEO and more. It includes marketing software to help increase traffic, get more conversions and run marketing campaigns that scale. It also offers sales software that provides detailed insights into prospects and customer service software to drive deeper connections with customers. It’s a comprehensive, low-cost (in some cases free) platform that’s especially popular with small businesses. You can add HubSpot to your Wix websites straight from the App Market.
2. Clearbit: customer data enrichment
On average, 98% of a website’s traffic is anonymous, so how can you follow up? Enter Clearbit Reveal, which uses visitors’ IP addresses to identify the visitor’s company, industry, location and more. That data can be used to determine which campaigns drive the highest-value traffic and what content attracts your ideal customer. Reveal can also show personalized chats to promising visitors and alerts your sales team when their accounts visit.
3. Mailchimp: automated email marketing
Email is stronger than ever: 60% of consumers say it’s their preferred way to receive marketing promotions. Tools like Mailchimp can be an effective way to create email marketing campaigns for your client’s business. Some key features include the ability to turn email campaigns into social posts, and segmenting them to target only specific people based on their behaviors.
4. Live chat and chatbots: LiveChat, Wix Chat, Chatbot and Live Chat
A live chat tool allows your client to communicate with visitors 24/7 for customer support, product inquiries and more. It provides a quick response when staff is away and can answer questions faster than phone calls and emails, which customers appreciate.
Wix Chat lets visitors instantly send a message on your client’s site to start a conversation. It allows your clients to send messages from their desktop and on-the-go with the Wix mobile app. Wix Chat also notifies your clients instantly when a new visitor arrives to the site and if someone buys a product or books an appointment.
LiveChat is an online customer service tool with live support, help desk software and web analytics capabilities. Unique greetings and powerful reporting are examples of how this tool can improve customer service and experience on your clients’ site.
ChatBot and LiveChat lets you leverage both live-chat and chatbot technology on your client’s website. This tool enables your client to deliver instant messages around the clock and lets visitors leave contact details for personal inquiries. This tool also allows your client to choose the chatbot, live chat or both.
These chat tools can be integrated into Wix websites straight from the App Market.
5. Marketo: marketing automation
Marketo is a leading marketing automation platform that can help online marketers simplify, streamline and personalize their marketing processes including marketing management and customer engagement. Marketo allows users to create personalized, scalable campaigns, identify top prospects and connect with the right customers. It’s also a powerful social marketing platform that helps with social promotion, sharing and engagement. Founded in 2006, it’s now the fourth most popular product in marketing stacks today (behind Google Analytics, LinkedIn and Twitter).
6. Intercom: customer engagement and lead generation
Intercom is a customer data and messaging platform that can help your clients learn more about their site visitors and communicate with prospective and current customers.
The platform can be used to:
Gather customer information for segmentation
Use chatbots to help capture and convert leads
Send targeted, behavior-driven messages to engage and retain customers
And offer self-service support
Intercom’s platform offers more than 100 integrations, which can help simplify martech stack construction.
7. Outreach: sales engagement
Outreach is a sales engagement tool that automates sales and marketing processes with one goal in mind: enable marketers to focus on targeting the best prospects and allow sales reps to create meaningful connections with them. The tool provides marketers targeted methods to move prospects and customers along their purchase paths, and gives sales reps a series of measurable tactics to connect with them. And because both teams use the same system, leads are less likely to get lost or mishandled.
8. Privy: sales engagement
The top 25% of eCommerce websites have an average conversion rate of just 5.3%. That’s a lot of abandoned carts. Privy seeks to increase website conversions and revenue by engaging new visitors with welcome messages and offers, then following up with targeted popups, banners, bars, landing pages, and more. They aim to reduce abandoned carts with these targeted messages and drive repeat visits with automated emails.
9. Form-building tools: Wix Forms and 123FormBuilder
From surveys to sign-ups, your clients can gather information they need to generate leads and learn about their audience. Form-building tools are the easiest way to create user-friendly forms with options like multiple fields, drag-and-drop questions and an array of different colors and structures. Here are a couple of form builders you can use:
Wix Forms make it easy for your clients to collect information about their site visitors. Choose a form template and customize it the way you want. The tool is mobile friendly and notifies your client instantly when a form is submitted. Plus, it’s seamlessly integrated with Wix’s CRM, so form data is fed directly into your client’s Wix Contacts app.
123FormBuilder can help any business create web forms and surveys without coding. Form templates are included for lead capture, event registration, appointments, job applications and more. And you can personalize forms to match your client’s site.
10. Wix Bookings: fast and easy customer bookings
Online shoppers demand fast, easy service, and they’ll quickly leave a site they find it slow and inefficient. Whether your client offers workshops, courses, or private sessions, Wix Bookings makes it quick and simple for customers to book services directly on their site. The tool improves the customer experience by taking online bookings 24/7, accepting secure payments and sending automatic email reminders. Plus, it helps your client by storing customer information and sharing service page links via social media, email and more.
11. Wix Events: keep site visitors up to date
Keep your client’s website visitors informed and up to date by adding a beautiful calendar of upcoming events to the site with a single click. Make your listings more engaging and useful with images, links, and save event buttons. Connect your external calendars to automatically display all your events in one place, and sync them with Google, Outlook and other online calendars. Customize your calendar with fonts, colors, and layout designs, and choose from more than 30 supported languages.
Analytics and optimization tools
As websites become more complex and more competitive, marketers rely on data analytics to inform their strategy throughout the customer journey. Big data can show the way, but it can also be intimidating. These tools can guide your clients through large amounts of data to find the answers they need to grow their business.
1. Google Analytics: website analytics
With a 40% market share, Google Analytics is the most widely used web analytics service on earth. The key to its success is the amount and quality of customer data it provides about website audiences. This data is then used to create and fine-tune a successful marketing strategy. Google Analytics collects a variety of data, but its value to online businesses is best understood in these three categories:
Where your visitors are coming from and how they found you
Visitor demographic details including age, location, interests and more
How visitors interact with your site, including page popularity and content engagement
Google Analytics can even help pinpoint when visitors leave the website or when customers abandon their carts on an eCommerce site.
2. Yandex Metrica: website analytics
Yandex Metrica is a website analytics tool that helps your client evaluate the success of your marketing campaigns. This tool collects and analyzes detailed data and shows exactly how visitors interact with the site. Their tools include video recordings of user interactions including mouse movements and clicks, and web page heat maps that show where users pay the most attention. It also provides an intuitive dashboard to help your client assess data and create customized reports tools to get the answers they’re looking for.
3. LeanData: lead management
Sales leads are gold, but handling them can be challenging. LeanData software helps your client manage leads by aligning sales and marketing to make sure reps are assigned the leads, contacts, accounts and opportunities they should work on. Plus, LeanData provides companies with detailed data that enables them to drill down into leads, accounts and campaigns, so they can optimize operations, close more deals and increase revenue faster.
4. VWO: sales engagement optimization
VWO, aka Visual Web Optimizer, can help your client boost engagement by gaining new insights on their customers and test new ideas for improvement. VWO software shows how customers actually experience products and features. This data informs clients what their customers are looking for. For example, use VWO’s A/B testing process to compare two versions of a landing page to learn which performs best. It helps your client make data-driven decisions based on customer insights and experience for optimizing their website.
5. Segment: customer data management
Businesses collect more customer data than ever before, yet only 46% of B2B marketers say they have a unified view of that data. Segment is a data management and analytics solution that helps your client manage and make sense of their customer data. By integrating with hundreds of other apps and pulling data into a single platform, it simplifies the process of collecting data.
6. Hotjar: conversion rate optimization
Hotjar is a software solution that reveals visitor behavior through several analyses and feedback tools. These tools include heat maps and visitor recordings that show how users click and navigate through the site. This data can identify visitor motivation, desire and site usability. Feedback tools such as custom polls and surveys communicate what visitors want and what's preventing them from achieving it. The goal is to show what is and isn't working on your client's site to find opportunities to improve the experience and raise conversion rates.
7. Crazy Egg: conversion rate optimization
Crazy Egg is another website optimization tool that gives detailed views of the user experience on your client’s website. With heatmaps, session recordings and A/B testing, you’ll know how visitors respond to the site. You can then use that data to pinpoint website issues, find out if your call-to-actions work and adjust site content to meet visitor needs. Crazy Egg can also help you drive traffic and boost conversions by analyzing key audiences such as new visitors and mobile users. You can also track your email ad campaign visitors’ behavior on the site.
8. Visitor Analytics: detailed data on visitor behavior
Detailed visitor data is essential to optimizing your client’s website design and marketing strategy. Visitor Analytics can provide rich data that reveals insights on: visitor behavior, page visits, new and returning customers and even the browser and device they used.
9. Everstring: predictive analytics for better lead scoring
Most marketers use lead-scoring models to help identify consumers with high intent. Your clients can supercharge their lead-scoring models with Everstring, which leverages predictive analytics to increase buying signals to more targeted leads. Everstring’s data-driven research can help build profiles of ideal customers in minutes, identify the best target accounts quickly and prioritize accounts in your CRM or marketing automation.
Step-by-step guide to designing your client’s Martech stack
1. Determine your client’s data needs
2. List the tools your client has now
3. Understand current and future business goals
4. Look for missing or redundant solutions
5. Start building your client’s stack
Once your client’s strategy is set, it’s time to research and understand which tools to use to bring it to life. Along with a strategy, factors like budget, business type and your client’s target market will impact the choice of technologies.
When selecting specific tools for your client’s Martech stack, focus on those that provide clear value for their users. Sounds obvious, but if you choose solutions with features you don’t absolutely need, they could impact how other tools work with each other and render your entire stack ineffectively.
1. Determine your client’s data needs
Start out by determining your client’s data requirements—what they need to flawlessly execute their marketing strategy. Understand the data requirements needed to track key touchpoints in the consumer journey.
2. List the tools your client has now
Don’t start building a stack before making a detailed list of all martech software regularly used by various groups throughout your client’s organization.
3. Understand current and future business goals
List the business goals your client has for the quarter and their goals for the next three-to-five years. This will help you clearly see which martech solutions will help them scale over time.
4. Look for missing or redundant solutions
As you review current and proposed solutions, keep an eye out for technologies that overlap or are missing in your client’s current Martech stack. For instance, several solutions that track customer relationships, but none that streamline collaboration among marketers.
Be tough in your decision-making. Strive to match every vendor solution to a specific marketing goal, if it doesn’t have one, reconsider including it.
5. Start building your stack
Now your marketing stack list should be ready to go, because the Martech tools you’ve kept and the ones you plan to add are precisely targeted to help your client reach their current and future goals.
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