This blog post is the first installment of a five-part series on why you should modernize your martech. In this introduction, we cover these key areas:
- The reality of legacy marketing technology
- What modern martech looks like
- Why now is such a crucial time to modernize
- The benefits of modernizing your martech stack
- Overcoming common obstacles to making the switch
- How to define martech value and quantify its impact
As the year winds down, marketers are making their lists and checking them twice: determining their budgets, planning their Q1 campaigns, and coming up with fresh ideas for 2025.
But the reality is, if brands are stuck with legacy tooling and technology to execute their strategies, they won’t see the results.
There is good news, though. We don’t have to wait until January 1st because the future is already here. It’s never been easier to throw out those archaic tools that are no longer serving your team and enter a new era of innovation.
And we’re here to help.
Strapped on time? The TL;DR is that we have a brand-new resource to assess the business value of modernizing your martech: the Iterable Value Calculator. Try it today to learn how much value the Iterable platform can bring your organization.
Today’s Reality: The Case Against Legacy Martech
With the rise of agentic AI and the continued focus on composable marketing technology solutions, the martech landscape has reached a crucial inflection point.
To adapt to this new reality of AI-driven innnovation, marketers can’t rely on old tools. Legacy platforms are going the way of the dinosaur for several reasons.
- They drain budgets. Approx. 37% of IT’s budget is spent on maintaining their status quo performance, depleting valuable spend from innovation opportunities.
- They aren’t plug-and-play. Their inability to easily integrate with other solutions makes scaling impossible and bars businesses from accessing new market capabilities.
- The era of the “mass blast” is long over. There is already a movement toward modern martech platforms as marketing has shifted from point-in-time campaigns to responsive personalization and automation.
In fact, research shows that the proportion of legacy tools in a company’s IT ecosystem has declined nearly 10% in the last year alone. This points to an organizational pressure to innovate and a rising risk if businesses don’t keep pace with tech advancements.
We are moving into an era of outcome-driven decisioning: Rather than getting stuck on tactical execution, marketers will focus on creative endeavors, letting their tech do the dirty work while they set the goals and steer the ship.
Do you want to navigate choppy waters with a rusty, old tugboat or enjoy smooth sailing with a modern martech stack?
The Key Elements of Modern Martech
Martech.org defines martech as technology used to “create, execute, manage, orchestrate and measure the performance of online and offline content, campaigns and experiences.”
Modern martech takes this technology one step further by dismantling the one-size-fits-all approach and enabling democratized solutions that improve personalization, drive customer engagement and enhance marketing ROI.
Here’s what modern martech looks like today.
- A central nervous system: Much like the human brain, modern martech serves as a unified hub that can connect to various independent tools and platforms, allowing businesses to tailor their ecosystem to meet their specific needs. This is often referred to as composability, which ensures that companies can access long-term efficiency and adaptability as they grow.
- Seamless integration: Because composable martech easily integrates with other systems (like CRMs, cloud warehouses, analytics tools, etc.), it enables real-time data sharing and comprehensive customer insights. This robust, API-first approach to integration leads to streamlined workflows and better customer experiences.
- Cross-channel orchestration: Today’s consumers are making purchase decisions everywhere, all of the time, and only modern martech can keep up. Platforms should cater to customers’ real-time behavior and preferences across devices and marketing channels—from email, direct mail, mobile, messaging apps, and more.
- Data analytics and reporting: Modern martech allows marketers to more effectively track performance, optimize campaigns, and adjust their strategies on the fly and in one location. By closing the data activation gap, brands are more equipped to create individualized customer communications.
Now that we’re on the same page of what modern martech looks like, let’s cover why it’s so vital to make the switch.
Step Into the Future—or Risk Falling Behind
Regardless of how we feel about what awaits the Marketing industry, transformation is inevitable. The only question for companies is whether they’ll resist change or embrace it.
Here’s why now is the time to ditch outdated, fragmented systems and upgrade to a single, unified platform.
- Marketing channels are growing, and so is the data they produce. 72% of marketers see the increasing availability and application of mass data as their biggest challenge for the future.
- Customers are demanding more personalization. 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions, and 76% get frustrated when this doesn’t happen. Mediocrity is no longer tolerated, and that applies to martech as well.
- AI is shifting marketers’ focus. Marketing technologies have evolved into decision-making engines, with AI at its core. Marketers are now empowered to be as responsive and strategic as possible with the support of modern AI-driven solutions.
That said, marketers are right to be skeptical about the promises of the future. So let’s briefly discuss what they can gain from martech modernization.
The Benefits of Modernizing Your MarTech Stack
When we talk about modernizing your martech, there are three primary benefits.
- Boosting Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). Modern platforms can adapt in real time to changing customer demands and industry dynamics.
- Scaling Efficiency. Recent economic headwinds mean that companies need to do more with less. This includes eliminating the costly maintenance of legacy tools and developing more streamlined workflows.
- Achieving Cross-Channel Uplift. A unified platform that engages customers across channels can give your team the power of fully orchestrated personalization to drive results.
As with any modernization initiative, upgrading your martech is ultimately about delivering business outcomes while minimizing risk. And simply maintaining the status quo has become too risky for today’s marketers.
In the rest of this blog series, we’ll dive deeper into each of these benefits and how you can accomplish them. But change doesn’t happen overnight, so let’s address the most common blockers to successful martech modernization.
Overcoming Common Modernization Obstacles
Transforming your tech stack will reap valuable rewards, but before making the commitment (and let’s face it, during as well), it’s normal to feel hesitation and doubt. But even setting aside the emotional discomfort of change, martech modernization isn’t without tangible obstacles.
- The upfront cost of migration. Upgrading platforms may cost time and money in the short term, but the plus side is that organizations gain it back with interest in the long term. Not to mention, modern martech is more agile and responsive, so migrations can take days or weeks—not 12-18 months like legacy tools can require. And because marketers rely less on engineering teams, everyone’s resources are freed up for other initiatives that help fuel business growth.
- The need for training. There’s always a learning curve when adopting a new tool, but modern platforms tend to be way less complex than their legacy counterparts. In fact, marketers accustomed to clunkier systems often overestimate the amount of training they will need during implementation. Getting onboarded doesn’t have to be an ordeal, and the right provider will ensure a seamless transition so teams can drive action from day one.
- The negotiation of getting buy-in. It becomes harder to accomplish any initiative when there are a number of stakeholders to convince. This is where we recommend leaning on the technology vendors themselves to help you make your case. Modern providers have resources to not just calculate the marketing ROI of their solutions but determine the real value to the business as a whole.
Introducing the Iterable Value Calculator
We understand how challenging it can be to project marketing ROI when comparing martech platforms. That’s why our team has developed the Iterable Value Calculator.
By answering just a few questions, you can calculate the value of our customer communication platform based on real results from 1,000+ Iterable customers and our library of case studies.
The Value Calculator is different from a traditional ROI calculator—it goes beyond simple dollars and cents to build a customized business case with projected growth and efficiency results for your company.
You’ll receive a detailed report that you can share internally with your team to secure their buy-in. This report details precisely how Iterable is positioned to unlock growth with use cases and applications of how you can make modernizing your martech a reality.
Take it for a test drive, and let us know what you think! We’d love to learn more about how we can define the value of scaled personalization and data activation for your business.
Ready to get started? Try out the Iterable Value Calculator and step into the new era of modern martech.
