How to Optimize Your Marketing Technology Stack

With the ever-expanding marketing technology landscape, it’s very easy for marketers to get overwhelmed when choosing which tools to use. In fact, there are already over 7,000 solutions, according to the 2019 Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic . So if you’re planning to add new tools to your marketing technology stack, you need to use a calculated approach.

You can’t just invest in whichever tool looks impressive or you’ll end up with a host of tools that you don’t really need. So in this post, I’ve decided to put together a few tips to help you optimize your marketing technology stack.

1. Use your strategy as a guiding force.

The main reason why you’re using marketing technologies is to accomplish certain functions that will help you execute your marketing strategies. This means that whatever technology you invest in should be able to serve its purpose within your strategy.

For instance, I could invest in Grammarly Premium because content production is a vital element in the marketing strategies I develop for my clients. I also use Buffer to schedule social media content for publication, since timely content distribution is another vital element in my marketing strategies.

So when you’re optimizing your marketing technology stack, you should start by developing a marketing strategy or analyzing your existing strategy. Then determine which tactics you’ll be using to execute that strategy. This will help you identify what technological capabilities you will need to efficiently and effectively carry out those tactics.

Clearly outline all of the technological capabilities that are necessary for your business and what goals you can accomplish with each. This list will come in handy later while you’re auditing your existing technology stack.

2. Take stock of your current tools.

You can’t improve your marketing technology stack without knowing what you currently have. Understanding what you already have will help you get a better idea of what you need and don’t need. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a bunch of tools with overlapping functionalities, underutilized solutions or tools that are missing vital functions.