Martech is a portmanteau, meaning it's a blend of more than one word. In this instance, it’s marketing and technology. But what is martech? Well, it’s the technology behind every marketing campaign. While this isn’t new, it has seen a dramatic rise in popularity in the past few years with the martech industry rising by 20% between 2018-2019. In fact, “75% of all companies” were using marketing automation tools in 2019. Think of the email marketing software, CRM software, social media management software, and digital analytics tools that help marketers to maximise sales and improve the overall customer experience. The various tools that you use will be called your ‘martech stack’.

Where did the term come from?

The term ‘martech’ was created by Scott Brinker, the man more often than not referred to as the ‘Godfather of martech’. He is also known for creating the martech landscape infographic - now called the Martech 5,000 - which showcases martech companies and solutions, despite having over 8,000 businesses on it. It has grown exponentially since its inception. In fact, in the 2020 version, “1 in 5 of the solutions…weren’t there” the previous year, according to Scott Brinker’s post on the Chief Martec blog.  Each of these businesses is separated into a category: advertising and promotion; content and experience; social and relationships; commerce and sales; data; and management. The Martech 5,000 was first envisioned in 2011, and had around 150 martech companies on it, showing how quickly martech has grown in just over a decade. 

Why is martech important? 

Well, martech helps you to streamline marketing processes with automation, saving marketers both time and money.  This means that marketers have time to work on the creative aspects of their role as opposed to having to do repetitive administrative tasks. 

You’ll also be able to analyse data from campaigns, thus creating smarter content as you progress, as well as standardise responses to frequently asked questions. All of this will help your marketing department run more smoothly and efficiently. 

Examples of martech software:

  • Advertising technology - software solutions will allow businesses to target adverts to the desired audience and will collate statistics, showing you which campaigns were the most successful.
  • Content Marketing System (CMS) - a CMS - think of the likes of WordPress or Umbraco - allows you to create websites with little to no knowledge of coding - ideal for a busy marketing team!
  • Customer Relationship Management (CRM) - a popular tool used by B2B businesses, CRMs such as HubSpot allow teams to see all previous history with a customer. 
  • Email marketing platform - an example of this is MailChimp which allows you to schedule emails and view statistics of open rates, clicks, and conversions. 
  • Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) software - these tools aid companies in creating a strategy to ensure that their content ranks highly on search engine’s results pages. Examples that’d be perfect for your business include SEMrush and ScreamingFrog.
  • Social media management - these platforms (examples include HubSpot and Later) help in scheduling social media posts, replying to messages, checking the analytics of campaigns on social media, and more. 

You should aim to have one of each of the above in your ‘martech stack’ to help to succinct your business and create an overall happier marketing team. As Scott Brinker says, “technology must become part of marketing’s DNA”. In past years, marketers had to guess at what campaigns would work as opposed to now when they can see comparative data at the tap of a finger. It’s no wonder that there’s now over 8,000 martech tools at your disposal!