Optimizing Your MarTech Stack

Benefits of Evaluating Your MarTech Stack

There are several key financial and operational benefits to evaluating your MarTech stack, including:

• Eliminating Redundant Tools
  If you pay for two tools that do the same thing, you are doubling your costs. Retiring redundant tools also helps simplify your MarTech stack, standardize processes, and ensure everyone is using the right tools for the right purposes.
• Increasing Efficiencies
  Using the right tools, integrating them correctly, and unlocking their full value can make your marketing activities more efficient and reduce costs and errors. Optimized tools can also bolster employee efficiency, allowing them to focus on higher-value activities and collaborate more easily. As an added benefit, employees can spend more time on the things that interest them, supporting employee retention and engagement.
• Realizing Your Full Revenue Potential
  An optimized MarTech stack aligns tools with organizational objectives and goals, creating an agile and efficient environment. Regular evaluation of your tools allows your company to stay ahead of the competition, foster innovation, and grow revenue more quickly.

Signs it’s Time to Evaluate Your MarTech Stack

You should evaluate your MarTech stack at least once every six months. In addition to these regular evaluations, you should ask yourself the following questions to determine whether it’s time for another evaluation:

• Is your data updated? If your data is outdated, you could be overpaying for your tools. Licenses are generally dependent upon the number of records you possess. For example, if 50% of your records are outdated or irrelevant, you’re paying for a significant amount of unusable data. Keep a close eye on your company’s data management processes to determine whether you’re paying for more data than you use. Any business activity that generates a large influx of data — such as a merger or acquisition — should trigger a MarTech stack evaluation.
• Does your organization have significant technical debt? Technical debt is the cost that results when businesses fail to fix technical problems as they occur. Over time, technical debt can become significant, especially as people implement makeshift solutions that could create further problems in the future. If you notice your tools are not working correctly or employees are frequently complaining about technological bugs, it’s time to assess whether you’ve accrued too much technical debt.
• How much manual work is your marketing team doing? Your MarTech stack should include automation tools, freeing up your employees to tackle higher value activities. If you notice that your marketing team is spending significant time on manual processes that should be automated, it could be a sign that your employees aren’t using the tools available to them. In these cases, an evaluation can help you determine if your staff needs more training or if new technology is needed.
• Is your company growing quickly? Often, as companies scale, their technology fails to scale with them. If your company has gone through a high-growth period, it’s worth assessing your current tools and what changes or improvements should be made.
• Is your MarTech stack integrated with your Sales Tech stack? If your MarTech stack isn’t communicating with your Sales Tech stack, it can lead to missed sales opportunities. If you notice your marketing and sales teams are frequently disconnected and that your revenue capture is low compared to your pipeline, it could be a sign that you need to assess how well your Sales Tech and MarTech stacks are integrated.
• How are you measuring marketing contributions to revenue growth? Your MarTech stack should have tools to quantify marketing attribution so you can adjust your marketing strategy and tactics to meet key business priorities. If you are having trouble quantifying your marketing impact, it may be time to evaluate whether you have the correct tools in place.

How BDO Can Help

From deployment and adoption through continuous improvement and maintenance, BDO helps CFOs optimize their MarTech investments. We offer a MarTech Stack Assessment that can help you determine whether you’re making the most of your stack and, if not, what steps you can take to address gaps and take advantage of new opportunities.