How to Get the Most Out of Your Martech Stack
Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2025 8:48 am
Have you ever chosen a top-notch marketing solution that your company was looking for and that fits perfectly into your MarTech stack? A solution that promised to deliver the best possible return on investment (ROI)? After about a year, you are still struggling to see any real return on your investment.
In today's fast-paced world, companies have less time and tolerance for friction when trying to squeeze the most marketing potential out of limited budgets and resources. And when it comes to evaluating your technology, it's difficult to get a realistic picture based on a simple ROI estimate. Given the variety of scenarios, goals and drivers, calculating the true ROI of your marketing requires a tailored approach.
In this blog, we've laid out four practical steps to help you calculate your ROI more accurately to get the most out of your marketing platforms.
STEP 1: ALIGNED KPIs
When it comes to ROI calculations, it's too easy to focus solely on the increased performance a MarTech solution can provide. The most common metrics are usually:
traffic and subscriptions on the website
website engagement and news engagement
conversions/conversion rate
Sound familiar? They are often the be-all and end-all for marketers – but beware of becoming too fixated on them. Your company could miss out on valuable opportunities that can impact your performance metrics simply because you are overlooking:
Identification rate: the percentage of visitors you can clearly identify (known visitors)
Deliverability rate and all data cleansing processes: These help maintain a good reputation of your sender domain (because if your messages don't arrive in the inbox, no one will see them)
Improved measurements (dashboards, reports, analytics) to easily understand when and how your performance is evolving
Both quantitative and qualitative benefits
So where should you start? The first focus needs to be on aligning your KPIs with what you expect from your chosen software. This will help avoid investing in technologies that simply cannot achieve your goals.
STEP 2: THINK ABOUT TIME-TO-VALUE
The next step is to consider how long it would take to get the platform to pay for itself. The most important external factors here are the ease of use of the platform and the training and support that the technology provider offers.
But that's not all. The biggest delay comes internally from the slowness of your internal company processes or the lack of availability of your internal teams. For example, your internal IT teams may not have the availability to help with the implementation. Or: the project has been classified as a low priority in the company or you have to rely on an external system integrator to release updates every six months.
This is the biggest random variable and that is why you need to make sure you have support in the implementation process, either internally or externally (if you outsource work to agencies), before you start the project.
TIMELINE
It's important to ask the platform provider how much time it typically takes to implement a project like yours. This will help you avoid complications and is also a good way to understand how easy it is to get started on the platform. For example, you can request an onboarding schedule with milestones to meet. This can help make the process smoother and keep stakeholders updated.
USE CASES
Capturing expected use cases up front makes all the difference. It's important to document all the use cases you plan to implement, consider them, and put them on a roadmap, including a cost estimate, to avoid hidden costs that might arise later.
TRAINING
It's important to consider the time it will take for your team to become familiar with the new platform. Will you need to plan for extensive training in the first few months? Or will the solution be easy to adopt internally and not require extensive training? These are often critical factors in achieving a higher ROI faster.
STEP 3: START WITH AN EVOLUTION ROADMAP
Now that you've chosen your amazing new platform, the only priority is to make sure your investment is truly worth it by leveraging 100% of the technology.
Most companies that use digital marketing platforms only use about 30% to 50% of the capabilities. Often companies aren't aware of this and so technology providers sometimes struggle to communicate it. After all, every business use case is different, so it's important to have a clear dialogue about your needs. Here are several actions you can take:
Align the technology provider with your business goals – they will be more than happy to make suggestions to help you achieve your goals!
Involve the vendor's Customer Success team to collaboratively deliver new strategic use cases every month.
Request regular updates from the technology provider about its new features and training.
Challenge your team to use the platform on a broader level and try to push it to its limits. A good example of this would be planning monthly team hackathons where each team member has to develop a new use case that wasn't possible before.
Don’t just rely on your experience, let data and insights help you!
STEP 4: FOCUS ON INSIGHTS
Now let's look at the action part of it all. Consider what methodology your teams use and how technology can help you work effectively to improve your performance. Insight-led marketing is key here: understanding your consumers and adapting your strategy to their changing behavior as well as their expectations can help increase your ROI.
Yet, companies make the mistake of relying on and settling for isolated, inaccurate, and low-quality data. To take an insights-based approach to your marketing, you need to choose a platform that requires ghana phone number data minimal effort to be informed about your business performance. It should even suggest some intelligent recommendations to fine-tune your customer journeys (with the help of AI). We recommend looking at solutions that offer:
Custom data visualization features to easily gain insights
Customizable analytics and reports updated in real time
Insight-friendly dashboards to determine what actions to take next
Intelligent alerts and notifications when an anomaly is detected
Forecasting relevant metrics to ensure they align with your goals
On this basis, using all your customer insights will help deliver a truly hyper-personalized experience that drives customer loyalty, conversions, and ultimately a higher ROI.
THE ROI OF THE MAPP CLOUD
Just because you've chosen the best technology doesn't mean you can expect spectacular results right away. It's a joint venture between you and your vendor to achieve the results you want and a higher ROI by combining quantitative and qualitative benefits.
Mapp Marketing Cloud is an insight-based customer experience platform built for you and your MarTech ecosystem. We help you leverage your customer data to unlock the full potential of your marketing technology. Our platform enables you to extend your capabilities to deliver truly personalized customer experiences and increase your customer acquisition, retention, and revenue with actionable insights.
After Forrester Consulting was commissioned to conduct a Total Economic Impact™ study on Mapp Marketing Cloud in 2022, here are some of the benefits they identified for a composite organization based on surveyed customers and over a three-year period.
In today's fast-paced world, companies have less time and tolerance for friction when trying to squeeze the most marketing potential out of limited budgets and resources. And when it comes to evaluating your technology, it's difficult to get a realistic picture based on a simple ROI estimate. Given the variety of scenarios, goals and drivers, calculating the true ROI of your marketing requires a tailored approach.
In this blog, we've laid out four practical steps to help you calculate your ROI more accurately to get the most out of your marketing platforms.
STEP 1: ALIGNED KPIs
When it comes to ROI calculations, it's too easy to focus solely on the increased performance a MarTech solution can provide. The most common metrics are usually:
traffic and subscriptions on the website
website engagement and news engagement
conversions/conversion rate
Sound familiar? They are often the be-all and end-all for marketers – but beware of becoming too fixated on them. Your company could miss out on valuable opportunities that can impact your performance metrics simply because you are overlooking:
Identification rate: the percentage of visitors you can clearly identify (known visitors)
Deliverability rate and all data cleansing processes: These help maintain a good reputation of your sender domain (because if your messages don't arrive in the inbox, no one will see them)
Improved measurements (dashboards, reports, analytics) to easily understand when and how your performance is evolving
Both quantitative and qualitative benefits
So where should you start? The first focus needs to be on aligning your KPIs with what you expect from your chosen software. This will help avoid investing in technologies that simply cannot achieve your goals.
STEP 2: THINK ABOUT TIME-TO-VALUE
The next step is to consider how long it would take to get the platform to pay for itself. The most important external factors here are the ease of use of the platform and the training and support that the technology provider offers.
But that's not all. The biggest delay comes internally from the slowness of your internal company processes or the lack of availability of your internal teams. For example, your internal IT teams may not have the availability to help with the implementation. Or: the project has been classified as a low priority in the company or you have to rely on an external system integrator to release updates every six months.
This is the biggest random variable and that is why you need to make sure you have support in the implementation process, either internally or externally (if you outsource work to agencies), before you start the project.
TIMELINE
It's important to ask the platform provider how much time it typically takes to implement a project like yours. This will help you avoid complications and is also a good way to understand how easy it is to get started on the platform. For example, you can request an onboarding schedule with milestones to meet. This can help make the process smoother and keep stakeholders updated.
USE CASES
Capturing expected use cases up front makes all the difference. It's important to document all the use cases you plan to implement, consider them, and put them on a roadmap, including a cost estimate, to avoid hidden costs that might arise later.
TRAINING
It's important to consider the time it will take for your team to become familiar with the new platform. Will you need to plan for extensive training in the first few months? Or will the solution be easy to adopt internally and not require extensive training? These are often critical factors in achieving a higher ROI faster.
STEP 3: START WITH AN EVOLUTION ROADMAP
Now that you've chosen your amazing new platform, the only priority is to make sure your investment is truly worth it by leveraging 100% of the technology.
Most companies that use digital marketing platforms only use about 30% to 50% of the capabilities. Often companies aren't aware of this and so technology providers sometimes struggle to communicate it. After all, every business use case is different, so it's important to have a clear dialogue about your needs. Here are several actions you can take:
Align the technology provider with your business goals – they will be more than happy to make suggestions to help you achieve your goals!
Involve the vendor's Customer Success team to collaboratively deliver new strategic use cases every month.
Request regular updates from the technology provider about its new features and training.
Challenge your team to use the platform on a broader level and try to push it to its limits. A good example of this would be planning monthly team hackathons where each team member has to develop a new use case that wasn't possible before.
Don’t just rely on your experience, let data and insights help you!
STEP 4: FOCUS ON INSIGHTS
Now let's look at the action part of it all. Consider what methodology your teams use and how technology can help you work effectively to improve your performance. Insight-led marketing is key here: understanding your consumers and adapting your strategy to their changing behavior as well as their expectations can help increase your ROI.
Yet, companies make the mistake of relying on and settling for isolated, inaccurate, and low-quality data. To take an insights-based approach to your marketing, you need to choose a platform that requires ghana phone number data minimal effort to be informed about your business performance. It should even suggest some intelligent recommendations to fine-tune your customer journeys (with the help of AI). We recommend looking at solutions that offer:
Custom data visualization features to easily gain insights
Customizable analytics and reports updated in real time
Insight-friendly dashboards to determine what actions to take next
Intelligent alerts and notifications when an anomaly is detected
Forecasting relevant metrics to ensure they align with your goals
On this basis, using all your customer insights will help deliver a truly hyper-personalized experience that drives customer loyalty, conversions, and ultimately a higher ROI.
THE ROI OF THE MAPP CLOUD
Just because you've chosen the best technology doesn't mean you can expect spectacular results right away. It's a joint venture between you and your vendor to achieve the results you want and a higher ROI by combining quantitative and qualitative benefits.
Mapp Marketing Cloud is an insight-based customer experience platform built for you and your MarTech ecosystem. We help you leverage your customer data to unlock the full potential of your marketing technology. Our platform enables you to extend your capabilities to deliver truly personalized customer experiences and increase your customer acquisition, retention, and revenue with actionable insights.
After Forrester Consulting was commissioned to conduct a Total Economic Impact™ study on Mapp Marketing Cloud in 2022, here are some of the benefits they identified for a composite organization based on surveyed customers and over a three-year period.