Mastering the Marketing Technology Maze: Innovative Solutions for SMEs and Enterprises
In the world of marketing technology, many businesses feel stuck navigating a maze of options. While mainstream tools like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Google Analytics dominate, innovative alternatives are emerging that may better suit specific business needs. Whether you're an SME or an enterprise, exploring these less mainstream options could give you a competitive edge, providing more flexibility, control, and scalability.
In this Insight we take a look at some innovative concepts and tools designed to empower you to make informed decisions. We provide use cases and reasons why these tools may be a better fit than bigger players, along with practical examples of how they might be combined to create powerful marketing workflows.
Composable Marketing Infrastructure: A Tailored Approach for Growth
Composable infrastructure allows you to build a custom marketing tech stack from specialised components, integrating only the tools that meet your specific needs. This is a more agile, adaptable alternative to one-size-fits-all platforms.
With composable infrastructure, you can avoid being locked into a single vendor. Instead, you can select the best tool for each task, making it easier to adjust as your business grows and your needs evolve.
Stand out options:
Segment: Helps businesses unify customer data across all touchpoints and integrate with analytics and marketing tools. It’s a great fit for Australian businesses as it integrates with both local and global media channels.
Use case: A mid-sized retail business can use Segment to track customer interactions across their website, email, and social media. By having a single source of truth for customer data, they can personalise marketing efforts without needing a complex enterprise CRM like Salesforce.
Treasure Data: A data platform offering advanced analytics and machine learning. Suitable for businesses looking to leverage data for deeper insights.
Use case: A growing eCommerce brand can use Treasure Data to analyse purchasing behaviour and predict future buying patterns. This is a direct alternative to Google BigQuery, with more customisation options for businesses not ready to invest in a larger enterprise-level tool.
Steps to take:
Start by integrating Segment into your marketing infrastructure to gather customer data across all touch-points. As your data needs expand, Treasure Data can help with advanced analysis, enabling you to create more personalised marketing campaigns.
AI-Powered Marketing Infrastructure: Predicting Customer Needs
Artificial Intelligence (AI) isn’t going anywhere and it can transform your marketing by automating decision-making and improving customer experiences in real time. This helps both SMEs and enterprises streamline their marketing efforts.
AI doesn’t just automate processes—it also delivers insights and predictive analytics that allow businesses to anticipate customer needs and optimise campaigns based on real-time data.
Best bets:
Cortex: An AI platform that optimises content for engagement based on historical performance and real-time data.
Use case: An Australian content-heavy business like a digital publication can use Cortex to automatically recommend the best-performing article topics. It’s a great alternative to content marketing tools like CoSchedule, offering more AI-driven insights to help teams produce content faster and more efficiently.
Albert AI: A platform that automates and optimises paid media campaigns.
Use case: A fashion retailer running multiple paid ad campaigns can use Albert AI to manage Facebook and Google Ads in real time, optimising ad spend and targeting. This platform is a step up from Google Ads Manager, providing more advanced AI-driven decision-making for media buying.
Putting it to use:
Start small by using Cortex to optimise content production and scheduling. If you're running paid media campaigns, integrate Albert AI to automate media buying and performance optimisation.
Decentralised Marketing Infrastructure: Transparency and Trust
Decentralised marketing uses blockchain technology to increase transparency and control over your marketing data, reducing reliance on centralised platforms like Google or Facebook.
Decentralised platforms give businesses more control over their data, allowing for transparency in how customer information is shared. This is ideal for companies that value data privacy and want to build customer trust.
Top picks:
Brave Browser & Basic Attention Token (BAT): A decentralised advertising model that rewards users with BAT tokens for viewing ads, while giving advertisers a privacy-conscious audience.
Use case: A start-up looking to build a privacy-conscious customer base can use Brave to advertise directly to users who are paid in BAT for their attention. This is a transparent alternative to Google Ads, where user data privacy is often a concern.
Ocean Protocol: A blockchain-based platform for securely sharing and monetising data. While still in its early stages, it offers businesses the ability to securely share customer insights and other data.
Making it work:
Consider using Brave for advertising if your target audience values privacy. Brave's ad platform allows you to reward users for their attention while building trust with your audience.
Marketing Operations Platforms (MOPs): Streamlining Your Workflow
Marketing Operations Platforms (MOPs) centralise all your marketing workflows, from campaign planning to execution, ensuring efficiency and governance.
As marketing becomes more complex, a MOP helps teams streamline processes, ensuring everything from resource management to content approvals are handled in one system. This improves collaboration and productivity, particularly in large organisations.
Popular options:
Workfront (Adobe): A marketing operations platform used by enterprises to manage large-scale campaigns, centralising everything from resource allocation to performance reporting.
Use case: An Australian enterprise with multiple departments running campaigns can use Workfront to ensure everyone stays on the same page. It integrates seamlessly with Adobe tools, making it a strong alternative to using multiple disconnected tools.
Wrike: A project management tool with marketing-specific features, such as content approval workflows and campaign management templates.
Use case: An SME managing various marketing projects can use Wrike to track progress, manage approvals, and collaborate with external agencies. It’s a simpler, more budget-friendly option compared to Workfront, making it a better fit for smaller teams.
Bringing it to life:
For SMEs, Wrike is a good starting point for managing marketing projects, particularly if you work with external agencies or freelancers. Larger enterprises may benefit from Workfront’s more advanced features, especially if you’re already using Adobe tools.
Omni-Channel Customer Data Platforms (CDPs): Enhancing Customer Experience
Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) collect and unify customer data from multiple touchpoints, enabling businesses to deliver personalised marketing at scale.
By creating a single customer view, CDPs break down silos between marketing, sales, and customer service, enabling businesses to personalise communications across all channels.
Solid choices:
Blueshift: Blueshift provides AI-powered personalisation across channels, helping businesses automate and optimise customer engagement.
Use case: An Australian retailer can use Blueshift to send personalised product recommendations to customers based on their browsing and purchase history. It’s an alternative to larger CDPs like Segment, offering more built-in AI capabilities for personalisation.
Ometria: Focused on eCommerce, Ometria offers predictive customer segmentation and lifecycle marketing, helping online businesses personalise their marketing efforts.
Use case: An online fashion store could use Ometria to send targeted promotions and product recommendations based on a customer’s previous purchases, behaviour, and predicted preferences.
Getting started:
For businesses focused on eCommerce, Ometria is an excellent option for building personalised campaigns that drive engagement. For multi-channel businesses, Blueshift can help unify customer data across various touch-points, improving the customer experience.
Who to Watch: Emerging Trends and Providers
Cortex: With AI content optimisation growing, Cortex is leading the charge in automating content strategy.
Albert AI: As more businesses seek AI-driven solutions for ad spend, Albert AI is becoming a key player in automating paid media campaigns.
Ocean Protocol: While still in its early stages, this blockchain platform is pioneering decentralised data sharing for marketers, making it one to watch in the coming years.
End-to-End Workflow Example: A Composable, AI-Driven System for SME’s
Segment: Collect customer data from website, email, and social channels.
Blueshift: Use AI to create personalised recommendations and automate customer engagement based on Segment data.
Wrike: Manage content creation and marketing campaign workflows to ensure timely execution.
Cortex: Optimise content strategy based on AI-driven insights.
This combination of tools provides SMEs with an affordable, AI-powered marketing workflow that automates customer engagement, improves personalisation, and optimises marketing strategy. We think it’s worth a closer look if you’re scoping a more comprehensive workflow.
Embrace Innovation and Grow
Navigating the marketing technology landscape doesn’t mean you have to stick with the big players. There are innovative solutions out there—ranging from AI-driven platforms to blockchain-based models—that can give your business a competitive edge. Whether you’re an SME or an enterprise, exploring these lesser-known options can empower your marketing efforts.
At Adored Brands, we believe in empowering our clients to make informed decisions by providing insights into both mainstream and cutting-edge technologies. Whether you need help assembling a composable infrastructure, implementing AI tools, or exploring decentralised advertising, we’re here to guide you every step of the way. Book in for a chat, we’d love to hear what you think.
