5 New Technologies for Your Martech Stack

Marketing automation, like all technology, continues to evolve at a rapid pace. That means constant additions to the set of new tech tools, platforms, and solutions you have to consider. Here are some to be on the lookout for that could be game-changers for your marketing objectives.

1) Voice search

Search technology is a key area that is beginning to evolve. Already, voice search has become more popular thanks to voice assistants like Siri and smart speakers for the home, such as Google Home and Amazon Echo. This will continue to play a role in marketing, providing new ways to share information and be found through voice search.

While there are challenges with developing marketing for this technology, there are also opportunities. For example, if smart speaker users ask their digital assistant for a recipe, you can link your food product or ingredient to these recipes. Even if you aren’t quite ready to do a smart speaker ad, you can still optimize for voice search by addressing the different search patterns, such as longer, conversation-style queries.

2) Visual search

However, even greater in terms of opportunity could be the transition to visual searches that rely on images over words to find products and services within search engines. Thanks to further developments in the areas of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), this new type of search is becoming a popular way to search versus having to figure out keywords.
To take advantage of this marketing technology, you will need to build image search into your web inventory as well as add images to your existing sitemap. Integration with other types of technology like chatbots can also help propel visual search capability.

3) No-code platforms and integrations

With the benefits of marketing technology integrations to do more, companies are producing user-friendly open platforms that don’t require code to customize or add integrations.

This means you can use more marketing technology without turning to IT for assistance. The result is more agile responses and changes to customer experiences. In turn, customers will appreciate the quick response to their need for improved service delivery.

Additionally, it’s the ability to integrate more types of advanced technology that will also provide a way to get more intelligence from the available data. For example, combining big data accessed from smart devices with artificial intelligence and machine learning as well as virtual, augmented, and mixed reality can add new layers of understanding about customer behavior and preferences.

4) Advanced automation

While marketing automation of workflows and other tasks is already mainstream, there are more advanced automation techniques on the horizon. This includes automated marketing content generation based on advancements with natural language generation tools.

Unlike previous attempts that resulted in generic content, the new technology is proving that machine learning is advancing in its understanding of the nuances of human language as well as deepening its ability to provide customization and greater detail to the content generated.

5) Digital convenience

Look for more marketing technology aimed at digital convenience that both addresses the recent change to how consumers can access retailers and restaurants as well as meets their expectations for more on-demand experiences. There has been a definitive shift where people are valuing their time (and, recently, their health) over the cost of delivery options.

These vast changes will require new digital asset management and product information system technology driven by AI. Investing in this technology will mean that marketers can do their part in keeping these digital experiences fresh, relevant, and aligned with product and service availability.

A balanced approach to your martech stack

These are just a few of the promising marketing technologies set to launch or grow in the next year. Within each of these technologies, numerous tools and solutions may launch, creating a dilemma for you and your martech stack.

You want to be positioned to leverage the best that marketing technology offers, but that doesn’t mean adding everything here or on the growing list of available products. All of this technology is worth keeping an eye out for to assess if it can assist with your marketing objectives.

To get the most return from all marketing technology, you must decide what you need to do better and how to use the time available to make those changes. That may mean changing the channels you use, allocating more tasks to automation, employing new tactics, or all of the above.

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