Want to learn more about drafting, negotiating, and understanding intellectual property and technology contracts, and have 10 minutes to spare? Grab your morning coffee or afternoon tea and dig into our Tech Contract Quick Bytes—small servings of technical contract insights expertly prepared by our seasoned attorneys. This month, we're dishing up best practices for marketing technology.
Marketing technology (martech) consists of various tools and solutions that assist with marketing; each marketer's unique combination of these tools is known as their martech "stack."
For many marketers, martech has become essential because of its ability to automate and streamline marketing campaigns. Recent U.S. annual spending on B2B martech solutions has exceeded approximately $7 billion.
As the landscape for martech expands, so too does the complexity of the issues that arise from trying to implement disparate tools and solutions. However, many of these issues can be mitigated by thoughtful planning during the procurement, implementation, and renewal phases.
Initial Considerations
- Create a team of key stakeholders who understand the technology and the integration process
- Assess your current stack (or visualize your new stack) and define your actual needs
- Have clearly defined objectives, a set of criteria that you will use to measure success (such as specific KPIs), and a clear understanding of how the new martech will integrate into your stack
Procurement and Implementation
- Consider your nonnegotiables and use these to narrow down vendors
- Focus on interoperability early, as it is often a vendor blind spot
- Pay attention to data ownership and termination rights. Ensure you own your data outputs
- Avoid fees tied to volumes. If pricing is tied to active accounts, be surgical about what this means
- Use a "tiger team," i.e., a small group of in-house experts in charge of disseminating training knowledge regarding the tool. Training should occur no more than two weeks prior to receiving the tool
Martech Stack Management and Renewal
- Conduct a business review of the martech, ideally monthly (or at least quarterly)
- Include an evaluation of how well the tool has met your initial criteria and an evaluation of the vendor's performance
- Share these evaluations with the vendor and use them as a tool during renegotiation
If you or your company would like to talk about marketing technology, please contact A.J. Zottola. Click here to learn more about Venable's IP Tech Transactions services, and subscribe to Tech Contract Quick Bytes.