Kevin O’ Farrell, Associate Vice President at Analytic Partners shares a few thoughts on the importance of adopting integrated martech stacks to drive ROI in this quick chat while sharing a few B2B marketing best practices:

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Tell us about Analytic Partners and your role there.

I am Vice President of Client engagement for EMEA, which involves understanding clients needs and tailoring solutions to them. This involved getting a deep understanding of their marketing structure including martech and how they can optimize to unlock further growth.

Analytic Partners has been around for over 20 years now and we’ve been awarded multiple times for our approach to measurement and optimisation. We integrate our proprietary technology powered by data science with high-touch and very adaptive consulting. That way we can respond quickly and agile to our clients’ needs and help them make better, well-founded decisions.

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When building out a martech stack, what are some best practices according to you that marketers should keep in mind?

When building out a martech stack, choosing the right platforms can be challenging, the marketing technology landscape is very large, and many tools have similar features. 

Strategically, it is important to choose the platforms with a clear objective in mind, every tool should be relevant for at least one piece of the funnel.

One of the biggest problems is the lack of integration between the different tools. When choosing between different vendors, it is crucial to make sure that the different tools can be integrated to ensure that the data can flow without any problem. 

How can different teams work in a more collaborative way to build centralised martech / salestech tools and systems that help keep important data unified?

So often we start working with businesses that are siloed into different teams pulling in different directions: Sales vs Marketing, traditional marketing vs digital, etc. What we come back to time and time again from our analysis and client work is that it’s not one thing or the other. It’s about all of these teams working with each other to drive success across all departments, and hence for the whole company. One of our clients recently said that “consumers experience a brand as a whole and not in siloed campaigns” – and that is nothing but the truth.

The clue to having all data unified is having a holistic and unified measurement program in the first place. It can help identify the pitfalls in collaboration or the great divides between departments, while it establishes a better way of sharing data and insights into each channel, campaign or KPI across the whole organization. What’s crucial is that all stakeholders are involved right from the beginning to get their input and also constantly manage expectations. Otherwise, the unity will be gone.

How can marketers help the overall business by implementing martech systems that prevent team and data silos?

With such a program in place, often led by the marketing teams, companies ensure that everyone speaks the same language and doesn’t get lost in their departmental dialects. It is one version of the truth, one currency to base decisions on from Marketing, to Sales and Finance. Because, any decision impacts the whole business.

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What are a few predictions that you have for the future of martech as a whole?

With the continuous innovation in AI, the martech landscape will continue to evolve and expand; data will play a crucial part in fuelling algorithms and optimizing marketing strategy. Marketers must implement integrated martech stacks and partner with experts in data science to leverage the full potential of the next wave of innovation in the market.

But, again, brands need to make sure they are set up with the right tools holistically and not only for some business areas. Third-party cookies are one of those examples where martech is a curse and blessing at the same time. They’ve been over-hyped for years and full tool suits were built on them, even though measurements such as MTA never truly worked. And now that they’ll soon be gone anyway, marketers will need to get the right methods in place to get the right message to the right customer at the right time – which they should have done in the first place anyway. There will be a need for martech solutions that overcome those gaps, and that overcome them as quickly as possible.   

Takeaways for marketing leaders and CMOs/CEOs in 2021: What are some key factors they should keep in mind as they plan for the rest of the year that can help them innovate and expand their teams?

If the past months have taught us anything, it’s that we shouldn’t take anything for granted. The world will keep changing, may it be because of a pandemic or simply because new technologies and trends are emerging. Brands need to keep on planning for any scenario and never stand still. A good marketing technology solution will help you do exactly that, from measuring incremental sales to setting up ‘test & learn’ experiments for better, faster decision-making in any possible future.

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