How to use Martech data to drive marketing campaigns
Martech, or ‘Marketing Technology’, stacks can aid a marketing team in collecting, storing, and managing data.
Your CRM, email, and platform management systems can be invaluable tools.
But they don’t automatically translate into impactful campaigns or desired ROI.
Many teams have an abundance of Martech tools but still struggle to use them effectively.
How can you ensure that your Martech stack works for you? And helps you deliver more impactful, and effective campaigns?
What is Martech?
Before we jump in, let’s quickly address what we mean by Martech.
Martech is an abbreviation for any type of marketing technology or software that allows marketers to plan, create, execute, measure, optimise, or report on campaigns.
Some examples of Martech are:
- Salesforce – CRM management
- HubSpot – Inbound marketing
- Mailchimp – Email marketing
- Metricool – Social analytics
- Modash – Influencer discovery
When implemented in the right ways, Martech can improve processes, free up time for other activities, and make a marketer’s life easier.
A Martech ‘stack’ is when multiple tools are used together within one business.
The disconnect between Martech and campaigns
Taking the abundance of information in a Martech stack and turning it into actionable insights and effective campaigns can be challenging. The common challenges are:
Data overload
Too much information, not enough clarity.
Important, campaign-making insights can be easily missed in a sea of data.
Lack of integration between tools
Without a cohesive dashboard or way to see data across platforms, the insights will be harder to collate, and patterns will be harder to spot.
Teams not trained to translate analytics into action
Data and Martech insights won’t automatically give you the answers, they have to be extracted and interpreted by the teams using them. Without adequate training and confidence, these can be missed.
Misalignment between marketing & business goals
Data and insights are crucial to campaigns, but if they aren’t related to the business goals and help to move the business forward then the data doesn’t drive meaningful action.
How to turn Martech data into actionable insights
Step 1: figure out the right questions
If you want to turn your Martech data into actionable insights, you need to be asking different questions.
These will be different from the questions you ask when evaluating a campaign or looking at past activity.
For the data to guide future campaigns you need to relate your questions to your audience, goals, and decisions.
For example, your questions should progress from “What’s our CTR?” to “What messaging/CTA/button style drives conversions by segment?”
Step 2: prioritise high-value insights
Focus on the metrics that directly tie to your campaign, and wider business, goals.
Particularly useful are metrics tied to return-on-investment (ROI) such as:
- LTV – lifetime value
- CAC – customer acquisition cost
- Retention
- Conversion paths
These will have a direct impact on the business and will help both guide campaign decisions and aid in reporting for stakeholders.
Step 3: translate to strategy
Once you have decided the questions you need to ask and the metrics that will most effectively guide your campaign, you need to translate those insights into strategic decisions.
For example, if audience A engages with content X, build a nurture stream around it.
Or if target industry B interacted most with topic Y, create an ad campaign that is based on that topic.
Step 4: activate & test
Running A/B tests, dynamic campaigns, and enabling personalisation will allow you to learn even more about your audience and what works.
Every campaign is a further learning opportunity, so use it to test the insights you have gained and further refine your knowledge of your ICP.
Step 5: measure & optimise
It is essential, as always, to track campaigns and the impact they bring.
This is where you can close the loop, feeding new results back into the Martech systems and assessing them against previous insights and assumptions.
How to use Martech insights in your marketing
Understanding data insights is the easy part; using them to create a way forward can be the difficult bit, so we’ve put together some frequently asked questions about specific insights to help you.
Should you follow email marketing best send times?
Email marketing platform send times can be informative and help you optimise the send times of your emails for individual segments, industries, or goal, however it is also useful to test this yourself, sending emails at various times over a few weeks/months to test when you get the most engagement, replies, clicks for your audience – based on your goals.
What should you do when your customer journey software highlights a drop off point?
Martech can help you quickly and easily identify where your customer journeys need reviewing and tweaking. If your software highlights a drop off point, you should review your customer journey flows for the target audience, or segment and test changes that could potentially prevent this drop off.
What does it mean when marketing software analytics flags churn?
In marketing, churn is often measured in total customer numbers and highlights the rate at which people stop doing business with the company. It is an important insight for growth and customer turnover. If your data shows high levels of churn, you should review where and when you are losing customers, investigate your post purchase journey and look into how you maintain customer relationships.
How to maximise ROI from Martech
Martech isn’t about just collecting data, it’s about creating impact and using insights to build more effective campaigns.
Turning nice-to-know insights into actionable strategies linked to business goals provides a way forward and demonstrates to internal stakeholders the value that marketing can have.
To maximise ROI from Martech and turn data into actionable campaigns, you should:
- Invest in integration for one, single view of your data.
- Empower teams with training, not just tools.
- Focus on automation for repeatable wins.
- Align Martech reporting with business goals.
Not sure where to start? With 30 years’ experience working with some of the world’s biggest brands, we partner with client teams to build strategies, launch campaigns, and drive results.
We have helped teams set up and streamline Martech tools that help benefit their businesses, find out more about our Martech and CRM services.
Whether you need support from the ground up or a team to fine-tune your approach, we’ve got you covered. Get in touch with us here.
