At its core, technology is designed to help us work smarter, not harder. What technologies do can range from giving us insight into what our target audiences are doing to seeing accurate data in real time ... or even making us coffee when we roll out of bed.
Depending on your marketing goals and the tactics that help you reach them, your technology stack can vary greatly on what is best to fit those needs. 
Pros of Having an Integrated Tech Stack
I have never heard a client say, “I don’t like when my technologies talk to each other.” Why? An integrated tech stack removes data silos and allows all the teams in your organization to work smarter together because you are all looking at the same information. This promotes cross-departmental communication and alignment, which are essential for a successful organization.
By integrating your tech stacks, you also ensure that everyone is aware of the technologies available, so you avoid wasting money by paying for underutilized tech platforms. I have worked with organizations that completely forgot that they had a certain tech capability and bought an additional platform that essentially does the same thing. They were wasting thousands of dollars a month. When everything is integrated, it ensures that nothing is missed.
How Martech Fits into an ABM Strategy
The best way to put your martech stack to work for you in an ABM campaign is to use them and the data they provide to help facilitate collaborative conversations with your sales and marketing teams.
The biggest red flag I have seen when working on ABM strategies with clients is a lack of sales and marketing alignment. Account-based marketing focuses on an omnichannel, multi-touch strategy with personalization at its core. If your sales and marketing teams are not on the same page about your ideal prospect, what makes a good lead, or what ABM success looks like, your efforts won’t be successful.
Important Elements to Aim for in Your Tech Stack
It can be easy to get overwhelmed by all the martech options available. Here are a few things to focus on as you build your tech stack.
A Way to Measure Intent
It may seem logical that your Tier 1 account targets are based on your ideal customer profile (ICP). However, by incorporating intent data into your tech stack, you can target the customers who are in active buying mode for your solution. You can use intent data to build your target lists, segment by topic for personalized content, and so much more.
Automation for Processes and Communication
There are so many things you can automate within an ABM campaign, from making your teams run more efficiently to automating communication. For instance, if a top prospect is lighting up all the intent keywords that signals they are ready to buy, you can (and should) trigger a communication to the responsible sales team member to reach out ASAP.
Another great way to automate ABM campaigns is to create marketing email workflows for Tier 3 contacts that still offers a personalized experience based on their intent topics but doesn’t require much of a lift from the team who should be focused on the higher-priority accounts.
Reporting That Aligns with KPIs
In order to know what’s working and what’s not, it is critical to any ABM strategy to have a solid reporting platform that shows the right KPIs on easy-to-access dashboards. At its most basic, you need an up-to-date CRM, but ideally you’ll have dashboards that show the whole sales and marketing funnel and which tactics have proven most successful.
Prioritizing Your Tech Stack When Accounting for Budget Constraints
As you spend more and more time running account-based marketing campaigns for your organization, you may find opportunities to grow your tech stack and capabilities. However, if you are new to ABM and just starting your first campaign, you don’t need to buy the moon and stars in order to see success.
At bare minimum, you need to access data on your ideal prospect and then show up with personalized content where they hang out. Depending on your needs, this could be one platform or additional martech resource.
The best thing you can do to start seeing success in ABM is to take that initial step and try a campaign. This will give you insight to grow and do even better with each subsequent campaign as well as the insight you need to understand what gaps you have in your martech stack where you should invest some funds.
Ready to dive into more MarTech stack tips & tricks? Check out our joint webinar to get more insider tactics.
About the Author
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