6 signs it's time to optimize your martech stack for better performance

Organizations have a technology problem: They’re paying for more tools than they need, and the clutter is stopping them from achieving their goals effectively.  

There has been an explosion in new software solutions over the past decade (more than 14,000 marketing tools exist!) and most organizations use between 162 and 650 applications, despite efforts to streamline their investments in recent years. 

Wherever you land on that spectrum: Can you guarantee each tool is driving the value you need? Chances are, you can’t.

Marketing and tech leaders have an opportunity to reassess their spending and shed tools that aren’t helping them reach their goals. Let’s examine how to know what to remove so you can save money and achieve the full potential of your data.

Tech stack assessment: Signs your solutions are no longer helping you

Solution providers exist to address every different point of the customer lifecycle — customer data collection, consent management, record creation, feedback collection, the list goes on. Savvy teams realize that many solutions accomplish similar things in only slightly different ways.

To find unnecessary baggage in your tech stack, start by creating a list of every tool your organization uses. Note the key use cases for each and which other tools they connect to. Next, ask yourself this question: How does each tool create or use data to drive business value?

Organizations rely on customer data to personalize messages and deliver experiences with the greatest likelihood of driving action. The optimal tech stack is built around a cloud data warehouse that preserves the customer 360 and activates it across every team, including marketing, sales, customer success, and more. 

If a solution doesn’t help your data universe or adds hurdles in acting on your customer data, that’s an easy sign it’s time to let it go. Look out for these other signs to begin streamlining your investments:

Duplicate features

Many teams add tools as they grow and limit their spending by relying on lower-tier subscriptions. This patchwork of solutions can work for some time, but it isn’t sustainable. Eventually, you will lose sight of everything you’re paying for, and individual teams may adopt solutions for capabilities they don’t realize they already have access to. 

If a tool’s main value or feature is almost identical to another tool you use, this is a natural opportunity to see if you can access a feature-rich suite within just one vendor. You may be surprised how much you can replace by consolidating investments into one tool. 

Lacking (or nonexistent) support

Some SaaS vendors provide basic onboarding and help docs, and then tell customers, “Good luck!” Others lock support behind a paywall, helping only those who pay for a specific membership level or fit within a narrow range of job titles.

If you can’t access a friendly face on a video call to talk about your frustrations, that provider likely isn’t right for you. Customers deserve 24/7 support when things go wrong — because, admittedly, every SaaS platform will have things go wrong. There will be bugs and issues. If your provider doesn’t help you handle those hurdles and build trust, seek a vendor who will.

Messy integrations

Some solutions require teams to create workarounds to ensure they integrate with the rest of the stack. This is common if you’ve used a tool for years that falls behind in integrations with newer technologies. 

Composability in martech is necessary for ensuring flexibility and avoiding vendor lock-in, so it’s smart to invest in solutions that work with your entire ecosystem and offer a robust partner ecosystem to support your growth.    

If you create custom automations to link platforms together and the vendor is not willing to simplify the process, this is a clear sign to explore different options. 

Price changes

Every organization aims to grow its revenue, and price changes are expected. However, if your costs continue to rise for the same feature slate and support without any impactful results or value to justify the rise in price, then why pay more?

Usability issues

Your team should be able to easily navigate your tools and use each solution to its fullest potential. Many companies have invested significant resources toward optimizing the user experience based on user testing and feedback. Other solutions, however, still use outdated and complicated interfaces that add to the time it takes for your team to complete their work. Ask your teammates about their experience with the tools they use, and investigate any with a frustrating user interface. Does the user interface cater to the intended user base? If not, it might not be the right solution for your team.

Vendor acquisitions

Tech vendors experience an ongoing cycle of expansion and contraction. New solutions and companies pop up when the economy is strong and allows for vendors to grow, and solutions are acquired during periods of hardship. In the data technology space, recent acquisitions include companies like KORE, ActionIQ, and Infoworks — now all part of much larger organizations. 

If one of your tools is acquired, I hope the transition is easy and you still get value from the platform. But mergers and acquisitions can be messy and may change the technology offering or the human support you grew accustomed to. If your gut feeling says the vendor is going in a direction you’re not excited about, trust that feeling and consider new options. 

Creating an ROI-focused martech stack

Another lens to consider: How do your tools empower you to generate and deliver reporting?  

Your C-suite needs to understand the business value your team is driving. Siloed and disconnected tools make it much harder to prove your business impact. These silos also inhibit the promise of closed-loop marketing, where you can confidently understand how individual efforts lead to a sale and apply those learnings to future endeavors. 

Creating a unified marketing loop that fuels ongoing learning is possible and requires composable solutions.

Composable customer data platforms

Organizations are increasingly turning to composable customer data platforms (CDPs) to build cohesion across teams and apply insights across every activity. At a glance, composable CDPs like GrowthLoop act as the hub for all activities and activate data across every tool in your stack:

• Build intelligent audience segments from your data cloud

• Use artificial intelligence to accelerate campaign creation and suggest the right actions to meet your business goals

• Clearly understand the results of your efforts and apply your learnings to all future outreach

The best composable CDPs help people break out of the mold of their day-to-day and automate repetitive tasks — like sending a CSV file every morning so the sales team is updated on the latest customer activities in their CRM platform. With repetitive tasks automated, teams can focus on applying their data insights and trying new tactics. 

This customer data platform guide further explains how the solutions have evolved and what they can do for your organization. 

Future-proofing your martech

Your organization can drive significant savings — while improving your marketing results — by streamlining your tech investments. 

With all customer data stored in your data cloud, you can build a connected, trusted, composable ecosystem that ensures your data is constantly updated in real-time. This enables a virtuous cycle of optimization: You can create more targeted audiences, apply learnings from every outreach, and generate more revenue and value for your organization as you optimize over time.

No team will complain about simplification, especially if simplification also comes with a lower cost and greater results. 

If you’re ready to see how a customer data platform can simplify your tech stack, use our free CDP RFP to ensure you find the best solution for your needs.