Choosing the Martech Stack Solutions
This week’s piece on how to approach the selection process for Martech Stack Solutions can be considered as an extension of our earlier piece on ‘Elements of a Functional Martech’ Stack here at:
Outside In will try and cover the key considerations that must be explored when undertaking this exercise. Here goes…
Big Picture
Many organizations are taking a hard look at the capabilities of web analytics and online marketing solutions to drive bottom-line performance by harnessing vast stores of online customer data as it changes over time. Others are looking to reorient their systems to better focus on such fast-growing areas as personalized retargeting, social media and mobile commerce. It’s critical to select the right solution from the right vendor, particularly to future-proof the organization as web analytics and online marketing continue to grow in importance
Simply put, when we are scoping out the solutions landscape for a ‘digital-focused’ martech stack, the key considerations can be illustrated as follows:
We will now look at each of these considerations in detail…
1) Platform & Delivery Model
Does the solution maintain and measure lifetime visitor behavior and share it with other enterprise applications? The best solutions track and measure individual visitor behavior across multiple visits for the entire lifecycle of each visitor, which typically amounts to many months, and tie conversion behaviors to the correct points of influence
Does the solution capture and maintain the data needed— from day one—without requiring the need to know up front all the types of analysis one might want to perform? The optimal web analytics solution enables to analyze any historical visitor segment, campaign or path-mapping scenarios—without having to specify these analysis up front – before data is collected
Does the solution ensure data accuracy and integrity? The best solutions will collect data directly from the client browser to ensure it is monitoring authentic visitor activity—not automated actions performed by spiders or bots. To maintain data accuracy, look for a solution featuring filtering, auditing and data sanity checks, which enable you to accept only transaction data within certain defined ranges to minimize bad data
Does the vendor sample data? Can users choose to eliminate sampling at no additional charge? Strong analytics vendors will provide the ability to use sampling where it makes sense, but also provide full-data analysis as the default for in-depth analytics
Does the vendor deliver a complete business solution, with applications that turn analytics data into action? This entails providing a feature-rich analytics solution, a smooth implementation method and a robust training and support offering to help maximize return on investment (ROI)
2) Analytics & Reporting
Does the solution support digital analytics and marketing optimization based on stages in an extended customer lifecycle? The ideal solution will feature innovative capabilities that enable to track customer progression through lifecycle milestones such as browser, one-time buyer, email registrant, two-time buyer, Facebook fan, three-time buyer, and so forth. With an extended view of behavior, one can identify which campaigns and touch points trigger progression though lifecycle stages and accelerate movement from one milestone to the next, while increasing the value of each transaction. Such capabilities help to advance beyond traditional, limited single-session measurement to a next level of “measuring customers, not clicks” over a lifecycle that extends many months. In addition, the solution should feature built-in support for multiple types of lifecycles (including buyer, event, value, frequency and engagement), with the ability to customize lifecycle perspectives to meet the unique needs of your organization
Does the solution offer a robust real-time trending capability? A strong real-time analytics capability should look beyond top-line metrics and offer ad hoc reporting down into page-level attributes as well. Look for in-session and session-close reporting, same-day trending and hour and date comparison—that is, how did this last hour compare to the same hour slot last week?
Does the vendor have an industry vertical focus and provide best-practice vertical reporting “out of the box”? It’s important to select a vendor that understands the nuances of the industry and offers a solution tailored to its unique needs, with implementation and support resources experienced and knowledgeable in the said vertical
Does the vendor provide competitive benchmarking data from specific industries/functionality to help drive optimization? The optimal solution will offer industry benchmark capabilities that enable you to compare your performance against competitors in your same industry or vertical (using anonymous & aggregated data)
Does the vendor offer comprehensive ad hoc and custom reporting capabilities? Key capabilities include dashboards, KPIs, alerts and scenario analysis for business users that can be accessed on a role-by-role basis. Additionally, dedicated ad hoc reporting capabilities are required for power users
3) Social & Mobile Measurement
Does the solution help track ROI from investments in Facebook, Instagram and other social media – relevant to specific marketing campaigns – like, say, Marketplaces? The ideal solution enables marketers to measure the return of both clicked and un-clicked assets (or impressions) through technology that ties clicks and views of those assets by users to subsequent site visits and conversion, enabling credit to the proper channel
Does the solution provide sufficient detail for tracking and optimizing traffic from mobile devices and application usage? Choose a solution that makes it easy to track usage by types of device and device operating systems accessing the website, emails or advertisements. Look for capabilities that let you examine drop-off points and bounce rates (invariably higher with mobile devices than online) and use those insights to improve your mobile interface and usability
Does the solution help marketers understand how users combine multiple mobile devices over time so that they tailor the right experience to each device for each user? Pursue solutions that provide details on device capabilities ranging from screen sizes to cookie support and other details
Does the solution provide benchmarks for typical contribution of social/mobile channels? Robust international mobile device reporting capabilities will also be especially important to any digital marketing strategy with a global view
4) Data-driven Advertising
Can the solution attribute conversions and purchasing to appropriate marketing programs and channels, by their relative influence? Successful online marketing requires the ability to measure the relative influence of each channel (for example, paid search, unclicked display ad impressions, email, recommendations, social media, mobile and others) on conversion and purchasing. The solution features must help to understand a customer’s interaction with the brand through multiple channels over an extended period of time, and goes beyond the flawed single-session attribution models that credit the channel last clicked before conversion—which can be a misleading metric that can undermine marketing effectiveness
Does the solution have full retargeting capabilities for email and display ads built in? Look for an end-to-end platform that enables you to automatically launch targeted display ads and personalized emails to browsers and abandoners, with prebuilt integration with display ad and email service execution partners
Can the solution measure the indirect influence of display advertising on conversions? Pursue a solution that enables analysis of display ad performance by such metrics as sales, conversion events, page views, products purchased and unique impression viewers, and aligns with proper attribution across all channels
5) Personalization
For consumer companies: Does the solution include a product recommendation engine that leverages analytics data and customized algorithms to boost cross-sell and up-sell revenues? Size up solutions based on their capabilities to leverage deep visitor behavioral data to generate recommendations for cross sell and up sell
For content providers: Does the solution include a content recommendations engine that leverages real-time viewing and browsing data to deliver the most relevant content to users? Look for content recommendation capabilities that employ search and navigation histories to guide individual users to the right material. Ideal content recommendations solutions will also understand a user’s intent and include a self-learning, rules-based engine to provide maximum flexibility and demonstrate the ROI on its recommendations
Does the solution provide a consolidated, customer-perspective history of all marketing contacts and responses? The ideal solution will keep a history of all marketing interactions with a customer, including responses, which can be seamlessly leveraged for optimized marketing mix planning
Does the solution include segmentation and email personalization capabilities to drive conversions and revenue with relevant communication? Identify a solution that features powerful analytics that make it easy for non-technical marketers to identify and create segments (and micro-segments) of customers based on critical attributes such as pages, products, shopping carts, transactions, intra-page elements and conversion events. Once created, one should be able to reuse those segments time and again to more precisely target new campaigns
6) Multichannel
Does the solution permit to input data that customers generate by offline activity to create a complete multichannel customer profile? By integrating online and offline data, ideal solutions can open new opportunities to target high-value customers (who research online but buy expensive items in stores), assess the impact of online marketing campaigns on in-store and other offline sales, target individuals by geographic location and position the company to deliver a personalized experience regardless of which channels a customer uses
Does the solution allow measurement of offline impact of online marketing initiatives and vice-versa (depending on use case)? Solution should have a mechanism for linking online and offline data, such that customers who see an ad and browse online, but convert elsewhere are tracked across channels, linking the initial marketing program through to eventual conversion
7) Growth Path & Integration
What tools does the vendor provide for full integration with the digital marketing ecosystem: email, display ads, search and social? Look for seamless, native integration into email, display ad, search & mobile and social campaign management. The ideal solution will avoid building a silo around analytical data and instead share it seamlessly across the marketing platform for improved retargeting, segmentation and digital marketing execution
Are the vendor’s overall offering, expertise, and direction aligned with its marketing growth path and needs? Look for a vendor that provides a full suite of online and offline marketing optimization and execution capabilities that build off analytical data
How practical does the vendor make it to integrate digital analytics into cross-channel CRM, campaign management solutions, and other direct marketing tools? Ask the vendor how they enable marketing to create compelling experiences via any channel and engage customers in cross-channel dialogues so they can deepen customer relationships, increase brand loyalty and customer lifetime value, and boost marketing results
What does the vendor offer to integrate analytics with in-house data warehouses, BI, web and other predictive analytics? The vendor should offer capacity for you to integrate online and offline data into a single repository and apply sophisticated analytics to support precise, personalized marketing across multiple channels
8) Service & Company
Is the vendor’s pricing structure straightforward, understandable and trustworthy? Ensure that subscriptions based on a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model are straightforward and readily understandable. It will pay off in the long run if your organization does thorough due diligence on the vendor’s pricing scheme to ensure that the service levels expected are coming at the price budgeted for
Does the vendor provide high-level customer service at no extra cost and offer expert implementation by vendor personnel? Ensure that your vendor’s implementation personnel have expertise in the vertical to tailor solutions with industry-specific best practices
Is the vendor a trusted company with the assets and expertise to succeed and innovate? Key characteristics to look for include a pronounced vertical focus and an emphasis on the use of digital analytics and online marketing to address distinct business challenges, such as building long-term loyalty among your customers across all touch points
In Conclusion
Web analytics and online marketing have become indispensable technologies as businesses look to acquire and retain customers through such channels as personalized email, natural and paid search advertising, targeted display ads, social and mobile, on-site product recommendations and more. Usage is growing in virtually every industry with a web presence—from retail to education, from financial services to travel and hospitality, from telecommunications to B2B software sales, organizations are striving to understand how visitors interact with their brands online and capitalize on that information to drive revenue, conversions and engagement.
It’s vital that decision-makers diligently scrutinize solution capabilities and vendor direction, anticipate future scenarios, examine for potential weaknesses and ask the tough questions that ultimately help in the informed selection of the optimal solution for your needs. This approach is meant to help understand key characteristics to look at how the solutions can impact digital marketing performance. I hope it was an interesting read…
References and Sources:
1. IBM Paper – Essential Guide on choosing Web Analytics & Online Marketing Solutions