For years, the traditional knowledge in martech has been: the less apps in your stack, the higher. It’s apparent, proper? By lowering the variety of apps, you’ll get monetary savings, have a greater consumer expertise, and enhance your governance management.
The CFO’s default reply to optimizing martech prices? Reduce apps.
The CIO’s default reply to optimizing martech governance? Reduce apps.
Appears rational. However what if it wasn’t essentially true?
Final week, on #MartechDay (Could 7), Frans Riemersma and I launched the 2024 martech panorama, celebrated the 2024 Stackie Awards, and revealed a brand new 101-page report on The State of Martech 2024. (You may obtain a replica at no cost right here.)
A key part of the report was the evaluation of our current examine on composability in martech stacks, performed with 168 martech and advertising and marketing ops professionals. We approached the topic with a broad view of composability: combining any set of issues collectively to create a complete better than the sum of its elements. Not simply composable platforms. In our view, martech stacks themselves are composed of a number of merchandise, built-in collectively.
The outcomes of this examine have been fascinating, with fairly just a few surprises. I can’t cowl all of them right here — seize a free copy of the report for the complete shebang — however I need to discuss by far probably the most counterintuitive and controversial.
The axiom of “much less is extra” in martech stacks isn’t at all times true.
First, let’s set the context. Everybody who participated in our examine recognized a platform that they thought of to be the “heart” of their stack. 32.1% mentioned it was a CRM, 26.2% a MAP or CEP, 15.5% a CDP, and — a subject for one more day — 12.5% a knowledge warehouse.
What made a platform the “heart” of 1’s martech stack? The truth that many of the different merchandise of their stack have been built-in to it.
Now, virtually all of those platforms have a variety of options included or out there as add-on modules or merchandise of their bigger suite. That is the results of consolidation within the martech trade as individuals usually consider it: massive martech firms soak up quite a few capabilities, both via M&A or by organically constructing them over time.
“Nice!” most individuals say. “So we’d like fewer different apps.”
Different issues being equal, sure. However different issues aren’t at all times equal.
The truth is, though a specific function is offered in that main platform, 82.7% of respondents admitted that they as a substitute select alternate merchandise for a few of their use circumstances. A full third (33.3%) mentioned they undertake alternate merchandise for many use circumstances.
“Why the hell would they do this?” you may marvel.
That’s the precise query we had. And the chart on the prime of this text offers you the solutions (respondents may select multiple):
- 67.3% mentioned the alternate apps provided higher performance
- 32.7% mentioned the alternate apps have been inexpensive to make use of
- 31.0% mentioned the alternate apps had a greater consumer interface
- 28.6% mentioned the alternate apps have been simpler to control and management
In different phrases, these weren’t errors. They didn’t unintentionally duplicate options throughout two completely different merchandise. They consciously selected to make use of an alternate or specialist app for very rational causes.
Let’s study every of these causes in additional element.
Specialist Martech Apps for Higher Performance
The commonest cause? Higher performance. Or, maybe extra generously: completely different variations of that performance that occur to be higher for his or her specific preferences and use circumstances.
Simply because a product can examine the field and say it does X, doesn’t imply that the means it does X addresses all the particular wants and use circumstances {that a} marketer has in thoughts.
The instance we gave within the query — SMS messaging — is an efficient one. How do you assemble the SMS campaigns? Approve them? Queue them? Personalize them? Section audiences for them? Deploy them in sequences? Handle replies? Observe outcomes? Set off subsequent steps? Alert exceptions? A/B check alternate options? And so forth. You may think about a myriad of various methods all of this might work beneath the generic label of “SMS messaging.”
Not each marketer goes to need it to work the identical means. They might solely want or need a subset of these capabilities. A few of them may require way more superior options than others. It’s virtually inconceivable for anybody product to do all of this stuff the precise means each marketer on the planet would ideally need them to work.
And, hey, that’s okay. That’s what open platforms in martech are for. Baseline performance within the main platform might serve many of the wants, for many entrepreneurs, more often than not. However when a marketer wants one thing completely different, they’ve the choice to undertake an alternate app that integrates with that platform to ship extra specialised capabilities.
This can be a win for the marketer. However frankly, it’s additionally a win for the platform. They continue to be the “heart” of the stack by enabling the marketer to include any of the extra specialised performance they require into their operations. Worth creation will not be a zero-sum recreation. In platform ecosystems, it’s really a workforce sport.
A few different widespread examples: inventive instruments and analytics. A number of main martech platforms — particularly those who function an engagement layer with prospects — embody some inventive capabilities, equivalent to to construct emails or touchdown pages. And virtually each martech platform consists of some analytics capabilities of their very own. But few of them come near the performance you get from devoted inventive instruments or devoted enterprise intelligence platforms. Quite common to see substitute specialist apps in these classes.
However actually, this cause of “higher performance” as a motivation for utilizing alternate apps wasn’t terribly shocking. I had assumed that folks selected to substitute in specialised apps as a result of they wanted definitely performance that wasn’t lined by the implementation of their main platform.
The subsequent three causes have been extra shocking although.
Specialist Martech Apps for Higher Economics
This was in all probability, a minimum of on the floor, probably the most counterintuitive discovering: in a 3rd of the circumstances (32.7%), individuals selected to substitute options/modules of their main platform with a separate, specialist app as a result of it was inexpensive.
So, shopping for extra martech apps is definitely a strategy to save cash?
Paging Stranger Issues. We’ve discovered one other portal to the Upside Down.
Or so it will appear at first blush. However as soon as you concentrate on it, you understand that there are a variety of the way during which this may be true with out making a space-time paradox.
Add-on or tier prices. The performance may not be included in your present contract or plan on the platform. It is perhaps a further module or add-on that it’s worthwhile to buy. Or it’d require you to improve out of your present tier to a better one, which may ripple throughout your seat licenses. In these circumstances, it’s legit to match that value enhance towards the price of an unbiased different app.
Utilization prices and transaction charges. Some martech actions lend themselves to being metered with variable prices — knowledge storage, data, e-mail or SMS messages, bandwidth, transaction charges, name quantity, generative AI “credit”, and many others. A specialist app might have extra favorable utilization pricing than your main platform for a few of these actions.
Externality prices. Relying on the configuration of your total tech stack, contractual obligations you may have with service suppliers, different system dependencies, inside course of necessities, and even useful resource and expertise availability, the “all in” complete price of deploying a functionality with a specialist app could also be cheaper than implementing it in your main platform.
Nevertheless, watch out there. Externalities can lower each methods. In case you calculate the Complete Value of Possession (TCO) for any new functionality that you just need to add to your martech stack, you could discover {that a} barely increased value in subscription prices or utilization prices in your main platform is price it, given the externalities generated from bringing in an unbiased specialist app.
The purpose is that the economics of a given martech functionality might favor both your main platform or a specialist app relying on the particular circumstances. You need to do the maths.
Specialist Martech Apps for Higher Person Expertise
I’m an advocate of tech stack aggregation, which is completely different from consolidation. You may mixture apps horizontally at knowledge, workflow, UX, or governance layers.
With UX layer aggregation, I subscribe to the premise — different issues being equal — that maintaining a consumer in a single UI, in a single browser tab, is one of the simplest ways to optimize their work expertise. It shortens studying curves. It reduces context switching, which is an costly psychological tax. It helps customers keep within the stream.
After all, as you’ve in all probability guessed: different issues aren’t at all times equal.
In 31% of the circumstances of entrepreneurs substituting an alternate app for a given functionality of their main platform, they did so as a result of the app supplies a greater consumer interface.
Whereas consistency is one think about consumer expertise, it isn’t the one issue. Specialist apps have the liberty to design a UI crafted particularly for the performance at which they excel. It is perhaps easier, eradicating all different distractions from the core functionality it serves. Or it is perhaps extra advanced, providing much more options and suppleness for consultants or energy customers. However above all, it’s constructed with one, clear goal in thoughts. Each side of its UX could be tailor-made to that mission.
These specialist apps are sometimes greatest suited to “deep work”, the place a consumer will get absorbed in a specific exercise for a time frame. Context switching is minimal as a result of they like to focus whereas engaged on it anyway. They keep in context.
Inventive instruments are sometimes an incredible instance of this. The expertise of utilizing Riverside.fm to document a podcast or webinar. The expertise of utilizing Descript to edit that recording. The expertise of utilizing Canva to create promotional belongings for the present. These are best-in-class consumer experiences. They couldn’t be homogenized with out dropping the essence of what makes them so outstanding.
Specialist Martech Apps for Higher Governance
Lastly, 28.6% of respondents mentioned that they used a number of different/specialist apps as a result of they have been simpler to control or management utilization.
This too, by typical knowledge, appears counterintuitive. Isn’t one of many main issues of stack sprawl is that it’s tough to control all these completely different apps? Who has permissions to do what during which app? Are these apps compliant? Are they safe? Do they reside as much as their anticipated SLAs?
Different issues being equal, fewer apps are simpler to control.
However once more — look ahead to it — different issues aren’t at all times equal. Two examples of this.
First, as with a purpose-built consumer expertise, a specialist app might need a bespoke set of permissions it may assign to customers designed round its specific mission. The granularity of what a consumer can and might’t do, or the workflow of collaborations, evaluations, approvals, and many others., could be crafted particularly for the sorts of labor and workforce interactions being finished on this app.
Second, working in a separate, stand-alone app can present a protected “sandbox” atmosphere for sure sorts of labor. A person or a workforce could be given entry to this app with out having to be given better entry within the main platform.
This could be a helpful sample for experimenting with rising capabilities. If you wish to attempt one thing new, rapidly, on a small scale, simply to find out about it and see if it really works, it could be easier to initially do this an in a separate app. It saves the overhead of mapping out all of the permissions and workflows that will be required to totally incorporate it into your main platform.
Now, it’s essential to emphasise that that is not “shadow IT.” These unbiased specialist apps must be vetted and visual. They’re an official a part of your tech stack. They will — and may — be related to governance layer aggregation platforms, equivalent to identification and entry administration for single sign-on, SaaS administration platforms for constant onboarding and offboarding, and knowledge privateness software program for compliance monitoring.
Extra Specialist Apps, Extra Counterintuitive Advantages
By the way in which, the extra different apps that entrepreneurs use to substitute options/modules of their main platform, the extra possible they’re to quote higher performance (82.1%), higher economics (44.6%), higher consumer expertise (42.9%), and higher governance (35.7%) as causes for doing so:
Is that this as a result of the extra different apps they use, the higher they get at extracting these substitute worth provides? Or as a result of they acknowledge extra value-add substitution situations for his or her enterprise after which select to undertake them? In all probability each.
Nevertheless, I need to stress that the traditional knowledge of “much less is extra” isn’t totally incorrect. I’m nonetheless a proponent of Martec’s Razor (an affordable knock-off of Occam’s Razor): different issues being equal, the best stack is greatest.
However as the information reveals… Different issues. Aren’t. At all times. Equal.
For extra shocking martech findings and analyses, decide up a replica of our 101-page The State of Martech 2024 Report. You may register for a free copy to be emailed to you right here. (Thanks once more to our sponsors: GrowthLoop, MoEngage, SAS, Syncari, and WordPress VIP.)
