Is your marketing tech stack giving you more headaches than high-fives? If you’ve been feeling the weight of managing too many platforms, you’re not alone. GTM bloat, as we explored in the first part of this series on martech stack consolidation, can lead to inefficiencies, spiraling costs, and scattered data. But once you’ve trimmed the excess, you’re faced with another challenge: finding the sweet spot between consolidation and specialization.
Consolidating tools simplifies workflows and reduces costs, but some functions are just too critical to hand over to an all-in-one platform. Let’s dig into the pros and cons of both approaches and explore how you can achieve the best of both worlds.
The Case for consolidation: why less can be more
When your team manages a jumble of tools that don’t always get the job done, a one-size-fits-all platform is tempting. There are a few solid reasons you may be drawn to bringing Marie Kando in for your next team offsite.
1. Better integration, better data
When your tools don’t communicate effectively, data can quickly become fragmented, leading to misaligned strategies and wasted time. Consolidation allows for smoother data flow, enabling your team to operate with one central source of truth.
Imagine your CRM, email marketing, and analytics platforms all living under one roof, seamlessly sharing data. That means a more cohesive view of your customer journey and fewer data silos that can cause gaps in your insights. Unsurprisingly, 51% of marketers say integration is a top priority when choosing new tools.
2. Reduced costs
If you’re dealing with overlapping tools, you’re likely paying for features you don’t need—or worse, paying for the same functionality twice. By consolidating, you can reduce licensing fees, maintenance costs, and the resources spent managing multiple vendor relationships.
But it’s important to analyze and account for any capability or opportunity you will lose through a minimalist approach. If you’re a small business with modest growth targets, this could be a key factor in rethinking your tech stack. If you’re a complex organization with multiple geographies and product lines, your bottom line might lose more than it gains from consolidation.
3. A Simpler user experience
Managing multiple platforms means more logins, more training, and more chances for confusion. A streamlined tech stack creates a simpler, more intuitive user experience for your marketing team. Your team can move faster, focus more on creativity and strategy, and deliver campaigns more efficiently. It’s a win-win for both your operations and your output…and ultimately, your results.
Where Specialization Still Matters: Don’t lose the magic
Specialized tools exist for a reason—they offer deep functionality that generalist platforms often can’t replicate. Here are a few examples where point solutions can make a significant difference:
1. Multi-channel messaging: Precision matters
Reaching your customers isn’t just about hitting “send.” It’s about getting your message into the right inbox at the right time, with the highest possible open rates. A specialized multi-channel marketing tool will give you more advanced options for segmentation, compliance, and performance optimization.
For example, deliverability is business critical for organizations that rely heavily on email campaigns, like eCommerce or subscription-based models. Point solutions offer deeper, predictive insights on why your emails, SMS messages and more are performing (or aren’t) and dedicated capabilities for those specific needs.
2. Advanced personalization
Personalization isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s essential. With 91% of consumers more likely to shop with brands that offer personalized experiences, your marketing team needs the ability to deliver individualized experiences to give your customers’ expectations and build a competitive advantage.
Solutions focused on personalization and customer data management often outperform consolidated platforms by enabling real-time, data-driven messaging tailored to each customer’s behaviors and preferences. Think of it like a one-on-one conversation. A tool focused on personalization helps you fine-tune every message based on the latest customer activity, allowing you to deliver exactly what a customer wants in the moment of need to their preferred device.
See how businesses put the the power of real-time personalization to work with Marigold.
3. Building long-term loyalty
Not all CRM tools are created equal. For businesses that rely on nurturing long-term relationships, customer retention and frequently recurring business, specialized customer loyalty program offer deeper insights and purpose-fit capabilities. These tools are designed to help you build lasting relationships by driving engagement between transactions and incentivizing the behaviors that matter most to your business.
Finding the right balance: How to choose wisely
Given the above, should you consolidate or stick with specialized tools? The answer depends on your business needs. Here’s how to determine the best path for your business:
1. Evaluate your current tools
Start by asking a few key questions:
- What are the must-have functionalities for your business?
- Can a consolidated platform meet those needs without sacrificing performance?
- Are there specialized tools that offer value you simply can’t get elsewhere?
Use this as a guiding framework to determine whether consolidating will improve or hinder your marketing performance.
For example, you likely have access to email marketing abilities across a few of your marketing tools. It’s a tried and true channel that marketers across nearly every industry use. But, if you are achieving better-than-benchmark engagement rates with one specific tool, it’s worth holding on to, even if there is overlap.
On the other hand, over time, many technology vendors have offered credit-based contact data and enrichment. Make sure that you are not spending double on a bank of credits that aren’t even getting used, or, worse yet, are creating technical debt with poor-quality data or the dreaded duplicate entries.
2. Prioritize integration
When consolidating, prioritize tools that offer strong integration capabilities. Look for platforms with open APIs and native integrations allowing easy communication between systems.
For example, a company may keep its specialized email platform but integrate it with a broader marketing automation suite so the data from the point solution can be leveraged across your customers’ full profile. This allows them to maintain the high performance of their email campaigns while streamlining the rest of their tech stack.
This approach also supports greater flexibility to try emerging technologies or change vendors if a longstanding tool is no longer meeting certain business needs.
Integrating Specialized Tools into a Streamlined Stack
If you decide that some specialized tools are non-negotiable, there are still ways to integrate them into a streamlined stack. Here are a few practical tips to maintain the balance between specialization and simplicity:
1. Use middleware for integration and automation
Middleware solutions like Zapier or MuleSoft can help connect specialized tools to your core stack, allowing for smoother data flow without adding complexity. Go the extra step and automate repetitive tasks. You can make the case for specialized tools that deliver better results if you are also able to maintain efficiency.
2. Put your vendors to work
Do you really need one tool to work with another better? Put in the feature request with your vendor. Be a squeaky wheel about it. Ask your customer success manager to participate in your audits. Most solution providers are deeply motivated by solving their customer problems and they know they have to be part of an ecosystem. Let them step up to the plate to help with this one.
Learn more about Marigold’s partners and our approach to a technology ecosystem.
3. Audit and update regularly
The martech landscape is constantly evolving. What works today might not work tomorrow. At least once a year, conduct an audit of your stack to ensure that your specialized tools are still delivering value. If they aren’t, it might be time to prune.
Have your cake and eat it, too
Striking the right balance between consolidation and specialization is no small task. But by carefully evaluating your business needs and prioritizing integration, you can build a martech stack that’s lean, efficient, and still delivers the power you need in key areas.
In part three of this series, we’ll explore the hidden costs of rip-and-replace and how to really know what a martech overhaul will take.