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- Nov 25, 2020

4 critical considerations when choosing your MarTech partner

Updated: Feb 5, 2021

In recent years, all digital marketers and stakeholders have been trying to keep up with the increasing technological advancements within Marketing Technology (MarTech) and learning to adapt new ways to stay ahead of the competition. However, with the rise of AI and machine learning, growing delivery expectations from senior management, and little investment in internal resources, it’s no wonder why you might look for external resources from marketing to help with planning, strategy, and technical support.

If you want to create future-proofed solutions, you need to ensure that you go through the necessary considerations when choosing your MarTech partner. Making the right choice can make or break a company that has a heavy focus on marketing.

Do you have a lack of time and customer strategy? Are you lost in a jungle where the technical solutions are not optimized? Are you lacking a business case for the necessary IT solutions? If you are struggling with any of these questions, you have come to the right place.

This article will help you make the decision-making process easier by navigating and evaluating the primary considerations you need to make when choosing a MarTech partner. Making the wrong decision could cost your organization a lot of time and money for not much value.

In the end, and most importantly, you want to ensure you have a partner you can rely on, that has the right competence and can provide your company the type of service you require.

What is the focus of your MarTech partner?

While it might be nice to find a partner that does everything, it would be best if you looked for a MarTech partner who specializes in the area you most want to focus on. Are you more focused on customer strategy and revenues, or do you need a more technical partner or both? Striking the right balance between finding a specialized partner and offering many other services is the best bet.

This kind of MarTech partner will help your company grow and provide concrete feedback, which can be used to formulate a better marketing strategy to increase revenues and margins with ease and at a much faster rate than usual.

Should you choose a local agency or from a distance?

Why would you want to stay local? There are many benefits that you can reap if you get a local MarTech partner. Some of these benefits include:

Local companies tend to be smaller and will be able to support you more “intimately”
They will be aware of your specific business needs
They know the market and the customers which will help you improve growth

Staying local can be a massive advantage for your company versus finding a partner from overseas, as the partner will be more inclined to help you succeed and go above and beyond what you would generally expect from a non-local agency.

Do they have credibility within the industry?

This will help you figure out if this potential partner will provide a service that is worth your time and money. You should ask around the industry and look at their testimonials or case studies to help decide this for yourself. However, these should only play a small part in your decision-making. Ask their previous clients questions about their experience working with the potential partner; this will give you a better picture of what you will be getting.

One of the main questions you should ask their previous clients is how well did this agency handle unexpected problems and did they go the extra mile for the client?

This will give you a better picture of how much experience this agency has and what kind of service you will be getting.

What competencies do they have?

Knowing what capabilities they have will help you make a more educated decision that will benefit your company. This information will help you answer essential questions, such as their commercial and technical depth in regard to MarTech as well as AdTech (Advertising Technology), their understanding of data and AI, as well as their understanding of IT-architectural issues you might have related to your MarTech solutions.

You need to find out if they will be able to understand your specific issues, or if they are working in a standardized manner. You also need to find out whether they will be able to scale up or scale down the project and be your partner throughout your necessary transformation needs in the coming years.

Knowing these details will help you create a shortlist that will make the decision-making process so much easier. MarTech issues imply transformational work, sometimes for many years, and knowing these types of questions will help you better understand the kind of partnership you could create with your MarTech partner.

Furthermore, some essential questions that you should ask when looking for a MarTech partner are:

What does your business model look like?
How will you be giving us future-proofed advice?
Is your solution neutral in terms of consultancy support or will you be receiving kickbacks from IT platform vendors that will affect the kind of support we will be getting from you?

You should also be asking for examples of any relevant work relating to what your company requires.

In summary

Hopefully, these tips will help you make a better decision for your MarTech partner as they are critical considerations that need to be addressed before you make your choice. Overall, you should look at companies that have sufficient understanding of the MarTech technical issues, as well as IT architectural matters that will arrive in the future and have the commercial capability in creating sustainable growth.

See this as a simple guide you can refer to when you are solving your most important question: “How do I find the right MarTech partner - a partner that should help me in finding the right technical solutions as well as enhance growth in the marketplace.”

Getting to know as much as possible is extremely vital, and as a result, will assist you in improving your company and increasing its success.