It’s quite common for marketers to upgrade our tech stacks as we mature in our marketing programs. In fact, 83% of marketers report upgrading their MarTech stack each year. As your team progresses from a team that may post to social media or send an email here and there to a team dedicated to a multi-campaign and multi-channel approach, you’ll likely need to invest in more powerful solutions.  

But the question many face is how to know when it’s time for an upgrade. The question can mean different things for different teams. Knowing how to determine your maturity level and if it’s time to upgrade your MarTech stack is imperative to any growing team.  

Begin at the end 

When determining your readiness for new solutions, it’s important to start with what you want your business or team to accomplish in the end. Are you looking to increase revenue, reduce costs, or reduce risks? Then, ask yourself some crucial questions based on those goals: 

1. Are we driving new MQLs/SQLs?  
2. Are we increasing the customer lifetime value? 
3. Are we improving marketing efficiencies and ROI? 
4. Are we improving MQL-to-SQL rate?  
5. Are we in compliance with all new regulations?  
6. Are we at heightened risk to data breaches? 

Answer these questions by looking at your entire marketing funnel. A holistic approach can give a broader sense of your marketing performance and hone in on where parts of your funnel are breaking. Engagement metrics at every stage of the funnel will provide indicators to overall performance and find where problems exist. 

Mind the gap between goals and performance 

After identifying your end goals, you’ll want to determine if there is a gap between your goals and performance. If you’re unsure and you don’t have the means to find out, that means there’s a gap. Your tech stack should be able to answer these questions.  

Once you know there’s a gap between your goals and performance, it’s important to know how your existing tools may be causing this gap to determine if it’s time for an upgrade. Here are some common issues we’ve seen marketers face. 

Disconnected engagement channels: Every channel your customers are interacting with should be connected and data should flow freely between them. If your channels are sharing inconsistent messages or deals with customers, you could create a negative customer experience and inhibit your company’s growth.  

Users are dropping off the customer experience: Your technology platform should not only uncover issues with drop off but should be able to explain why they’re dropping off. Deep analytics can find customer experience bugs. 

Customers struggling to convert: Breaks or inconsistencies with the customer experience can make it difficult for customers to complete their actions, leading to lost revenue and brand abandonment. Technology that alerts you to issues with the customer experience can help you take action to remedy the issues quickly. 

Too many batch-and-blast campaigns: Manual campaign creation is labor-intensive. Automation isn’t a new feature in the MarTech world, but it’s a crucial one that some still aren’t utilizing. Imagine if you could build an automated campaign in two or three days that could run for a year. Saving you time and resources — that’s the power of automation.  

Manual check-ins on performance: Advanced analytics solutions can alert you to unusual daily spikes and dips in performance, cutting out the need for continuous manual reporting. 

Tech stack is disconnected: Your solutions should all be working together. Marketers may have upwards of 120 different tools they use to complete their work and too often, those solutions are siloed from each other. An open platform that can integrate with third party tools — connecting data, audiences, and behaviors — will give you one comprehensive view of your customers. 

Performance and attribution can’t be measured: It’s important to know how each touchpoint during the customer journey fits into the broader experience. This knowledge can optimize content and personalize offers. Without this capability, your solution may need upgrading.  

My MarTech needs an upgrade. Now what? 

Once you’ve determined how your existing MarTech is supporting your overall performance goals, you can make a decision whether to upgrade your tech stack. Any of the above challenges can cause major breakage in your marketing efforts and set you back time and time again. If you decide it’s time for an upgrade, don’t get scared off by change in processes or culture. The best marketing technologies will have extensive onboarding to ensure that you’re getting the most out of the platform as soon as possible.  

According to a Forrester Total Economic Impact Study, upgrading your MarTech stack to Acoustic results in an average of $4 million in new revenue in one year, raises conversion rates by 3.6%, and results in positive ROI in less than six months. Watch our on-demand webinar for further insights on how to tell if it’s time to upgrade your MarTech and get in touch with us today.