Navigating the Long Tail of Marketing Tech

The Gist

Strategic approach. Careful evaluation and strategic integration of marketing technologies are essential for success.
Value unlocking. Consider factors like CDP interaction, content management and security to harness value from the long tail of technologies.
Buy vs. build. Selecting composable solutions that fit your marketing stack is often more efficient than custom development.

In the era of Web 2.0, Chris Anderson's acclaimed book, "The Long Tail," sheds light on the internet's transformative impact on supply and demand. It argued that niche offerings could thrive in the digital landscape, thanks to their ability to reach specific target markets. This principle holds true, especially in the realm of the martech landscape.

The landscape of marketing technologies is an ever-expanding universe. According to Chief Martec, there are over 11,000 different marketing technology tools available today. That's up a staggering 11% over last year. With many organizations adopting a composable architecture, this long tail of tooling options makes it difficult to decide what tools to adopt.

In my last article, “The Heart of Composable,” I argued that taking an enterprise architecture approach to understanding how your composable building blocks will work together to drive your digital experiences will help you identify the most important components in your marketing stack and gave some guidance on how to evaluate those components and other tools that integrate with them.

While focusing on the core of your composable architecture sets a solid foundation for your Digital Experience Platform (DXP), there is a ton of value that can be derived from investing in the long tail of marketing technologies available. But to get that value, it needs careful evaluation and consideration.

Simply adding additional products to your marketing technology stack without careful consideration on how those components integrate with your overall composable architecture will not be successful in the long run. This is why I frequently see organizations adopting different marketing technology products every three to six months. They are trying different solutions to see what works, instead of taking a more methodological approach.

The Martech Landscape: Unlocking Value in the Long Tail

When you consider a composable solution, you should take an enterprise architect’s view of it to make sure it is really a good fit with the rest of your Digital Experience Platform. It’s important to make sure they do not create islands of content and data. When you evaluate long tail solutions, consider the following:

Can they feed your Customer Data Platform (CDP)? Solutions that interact with your visitors can capture valuable interactions data. Being able to correlate that data with customers or prospects can help drive their customer journey across other tools and channels.
Can they consume data from your Customer Data Platform? Most experiences are better when they are tailored to the visitor. If the solution doesn’t consume data from your CDP or data store, they will not be able to be as relevant as they could be, and worse yet may lead to a disjointed experience.
Can they feed your analytics platforms? Solutions that come with reporting features are valuable but usually only a part of the full picture. Great tools can feed your existing analytics platforms so you can create unified views of data and dashboards that give you a complete view.
How do they manage content and assets? Many tools will manage their own content and assets. They may not include the proper governance to ensure the content and messaging is aligned to your overall strategy. Great tools will be able to consume content directly from your CMS, CMP or DAM solutions.
How do they support integrations? Many tools may expose capabilities through custom APIs. This may be enough to drive the integrations you need but may require a heavy lift to build and will need to be redone if you need to replace the tool. Look for support of open standards like GraphQL and Webhooks to allow you to implement your integrations using consistent patterns.
How do they handle security? Many tools will require each new user to create their own accounts. This can be a security issue as it will be difficult to manage people joining and leaving your organization and ensuring people have only the access they need. Great tools will support single sign on, allowing you to authenticate using your corporate credentials and apply security rules to organizational roles.
What does it cost to License, Implement and Support? No list of criteria would be complete without considering cost. Composable solutions are frequently SaaS with monthly if not yearly commitments and fees. But also consider the cost to implement as well as remove the technology if needed, as well as support for the users of the tool.

Buy vs. Build: Making the Right Choice

While all of what we discussed applies to commercial or open-source tools that you can adopt and configure to your needs, this guidance also applies to any custom solutions that you build to provide the same type of capability.

Organizations may be tempted to build everything in-house to save recurring subscription fees or because they haven’t looked deeply into the market to understand what other solutions exist. They may think that their needs are special or that it may be an “easy lift,” to build it themselves.

When the custom development effort is aligned to a competitive advantage or the value proposition of an organization’s products or services, it could be worth investing in such a custom solution. But in most cases, you would be better off selecting a composable solution that integrates well with your marketing technology stack and is supported by the vendor instead of adding additional management overhead to your organization.

Wrapping it Up With the Long Tail in the Martech Landscape

Navigating the long tail of marketing technologies requires a strategic and methodological approach. By evaluating solutions based on their integration capabilities, security measures, cost, and alignment with your Digital Experience Platform, you can harness the true potential of composable architectures in the martech landscape and deliver exceptional experiences to your customers.

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