The Role of SEO in Marketing Technologies. Industry-Specific Research
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Research Editor at Serpstat
Are you looking to stay ahead of the curve in marketing? Then you need to know about MarTech! Short for “marketing technology,” it encompasses a wide range of tools and software that help businesses automate, streamline, and measure the performance of marketing campaigns. Marketing technologies have revolutionized how marketers reach and engage with customers using data-driven approaches.
If you want to learn more about the latest SEO trends and best practices in marketing, look no further! Our research delves deep into this field, exploring the strategies driving its rapid growth.
An Introduction to MarTech
MarTech encompasses businesses’ software and tools to streamline and optimize their marketing activities. The range of such solutions is vast and ever-growing, from email marketing programs like Mailchimp to CRM systems like Salesforce to social media management tools like Hootsuite.
Marketing technologies can help businesses measure the success of their campaigns, allowing them to continuously refine strategies and supercharge SEO efforts by compiling and scoring keyword usage and benchmarking content against other first-page results.
Brick-and-mortar businesses are focusing entirely on digital customer journeys. As marketing technology tools expand, this stack facilitates the transition. According to Statista estimations of a global market value, the growth is $345 billion for 2021, and it shows no signs of slowing down – the industry is projected to see an 18% increase from 2020 to 2027.
Source: The State of Martech, 2022
The State of MarTech Research demonstrates that the marketing landscape has grown by 24% since 2020. Using an example, 47 new marketing software ventures were part of the Y Combinator summer 2021 cohort. Over the past two years, some categories have grown more. However, some have grown faster than others. The largest growth occurred in Content & Experience (34%), Commerce & Sales (24%), and Management (67%) MarTech categories.
Melissa Slawsky
Business Growth & Marketing Consultant, ArchetypeMarketing
How can you describe the opportunities and challenges in MarTech?
Technology, including AI, have certainly made for more efficient marketing. However, one must constantly be learning and testing to determine what makes for more effective marketing.
Challenges
Most outbound strategies that rely on attention and ‘eyeballs’ are yielding declining results – which is why many businesses prefer to create their own media channels and rely on affiliate marketing/partnerships rather than traditional paid advertising.
Opportunities
With attention and awareness of ‘short supply’ for consumers, marketers must look for ways to create more value, meaning, and experiences for clients and customers.
The formula I like to use is
To increase MVA (market value add) and EVA (economic value add), companies will have to increase their MVE (meaning, value, and experience).
As the MarTech landscape evolves, businesses must stay ahead of their competitors by keeping updated with the latest trends. According to the influencer’s opinion, in the future, sales and marketing technologies will continue to advance in several core areas, including personalization, data collection, user journey, and the Internet of Things (IoT). Key areas include AI and chatbots, which have improved customer relationships by answering real-time queries. This is just one example of the potential for MarTech systems.
MarTech Components
MarTech components refer to the various tools and platforms used in marketing technology, which work together as a cohesive system to optimize marketing operations. The MarTech stack, as it is commonly called, is composed of different software and applications that automate marketing tasks, such as lead generation, email marketing, social media management, and data analytics. The components can vary depending on a business’s specific needs and goals, but generally, it includes several essential tools.
Another crucial component is marketing automation software, which automates repetitive tasks such as email campaigns, lead generation and nurturing, and social media management. This tool saves time while ensuring consistent messaging and improving customer engagement. Data analytics platforms are also vital to the MarTech stack, providing insights into campaign performance and helping businesses make data-driven decisions.
First and foremost, the stack typically includes a customer relationship management (CRM) system that helps businesses manage their customer interactions and big data. This tool lets marketers track customer behavior, preferences, and purchase history, tailoring their campaigns to the right audience.
Another crucial component is marketing automation software, which automates repetitive tasks such as email campaigns, lead generation and nurturing, and social media management. This tool saves time while ensuring consistent messaging and improving customer engagement. Data analytics platforms are also vital to the MarTech stack, providing insights into campaign performance and helping businesses make data-driven decisions.
Other components of the stack may include content management systems, social media management tools, and search engine optimization platforms.
Microsoft Marketing Technology Stack
Cisco’s Marketing Technology Stack
Melissa Slawsky
Business Growth & Marketing Consultant, ArchetypeMarketing
Can you explain your company’s focus and niche within the broader Martech industry?
Archetype Marketing is a solution and software for brand development and marketing communication. Essentially, it’s a ‘brand strategist in a box’ that can make for better marketing.
A better description may be BrandTech, though that needs to be understood. [Most brand professionals discuss brand building or visual brand identity, not brand development].
MarTech vs. AdTech: What’s the difference?
AdTech, or Advertising Technology, is more narrowly focused on the technologies and strategies used to manage and deliver digital advertising campaigns. It uses data and automation to deliver targeted and relevant ads to specific audiences. AdTech solutions include programmatic advertising platforms, demand-side platforms, supply-side platforms, ad exchanges, and ad networks. The primary goal of AdTech is to maximize the effectiveness of digital advertising campaigns.
MarTech is focused on using technology to enhance the entire marketing process, while AdTech is focused on the technologies and strategies used to manage and deliver digital advertising campaigns. While there is some overlap between the two fields, they have different priorities and strategies.
Melissa Slawsky
Business Growth & Marketing Consultant, ArchetypeMarketing
Marketing is generally about engagement, while advertising is about attention/awareness.
The future of marketing will likely include the overlap between brand, marketing, and advertising to achieve better results.
[Ideally, you want to know what you’ll say and who you’ll say it to before spending a ton of money on marketing or advertising initiatives.]
Key SEO Metrics for Marketing Software Leaders
So, SEO plays a pivotal role across marketing technology stacks. But how are the MarTech companies using SEO and SEM? We started completing a list of top-notch companies focused on marketing technologies using seed keywords:
Based on the list of 50 keywords, we got the statistics on the most commonly appeared domains in SERP using Serpstat API for Batch Analysis in Google SpreadSheets. After removing media and educational platforms, we got the needed top 10 for further analysis:
1.hubspot.com
2.salesforce.com
3.optimizely.com
4.mailchimp.com
5.wordstream.com
6.webfx.com
7.sproutsocial.com
8.sas.com
9.hootsuite.com
10.influencermarketinghub.com
Our next step was to check the traffic distribution using SimilarWeb to determine which traffic source works best for analyzed companies.
This data says that the most significant traffic source in MarTech came from direct site transitions, with search traffic in second place. A tenet of direct traffic is when a visitor accesses a website by directly entering its URL into their browser’s bar, clicking on a bookmark, or clicking on a link in an email.
The evolution of the marketing landscape can explain this. IT is no longer solely responsible for hosting and managing data-intensive marketing functions. Cloud computing, subscription-based pricing ******, and APIs have made it more feasible for marketing and sales teams to manage their technologies. Many products are designed to be accessed directly by users through a web application or mobile app.
What does this mean for MarTech representatives?
Users who have bookmarked or saved a favorite platform will likely visit the site directly rather than searching for it each time they need it. This contributes to the overall volume of direct traffic. Besides, many MarTech platforms cater to a specific audience or industry, so their users may be more likely to know the URL and access it directly rather than searching for it.
Search traffic is still essential for such companies, as potential customers may search for specific solutions or features they need. It is worth noting that omnichannel marketing is an overall strategy in the field of MarTech, which aims to provide customers with a unified shopping experience across all touchpoints of a brand’s sales channels.
SEO Traffic and Visibility
Our next step entailed gathering data on SEO traffic using Serpstat based on keyword domains, rankings within the Top-20, and visibility in search engines specifically for Google (the United States).
It has become increasingly crucial for businesses to understand how each tool works independently and together. This can be a daunting task, but Hubspot makes it easier with its educational materials and resources, which are designed to simplify the onboarding process.
The company has the most extensive visibility and SEO traffic due to several factors. Firstly, Hubspot invests heavily in creating high-quality, educational content that helps businesses improve their marketing and sales efforts. This content is optimized for search engines, which helps increase their visibility and ranking in search results. Secondly, Hubspot provides a comprehensive suite of tools. This includes CRM, email marketing, social media management, etc.
Similarly, Mailchimp and Salesforce are also leaders in the MarTech industry due to their robust suite of tools and focus on optimizing content for search engines. Mailchimp is known for its email marketing tools and user-friendly interface, while Salesforce is renowned for its CRM and sales automation solutions. These businesses prioritize creating high-quality content and providing powerful tools, improving their online visibility.
Melissa Slawsky
Business Growth & Marketing Consultant, ArchetypeMarketing
How does your company track and measure the success of SEO efforts?
As a former brand and content strategist, I was responsible for creating or optimizing the keyword strategy to create all website content.
For my own business, SEO has been more difficult to measure — being the first to market with a brand strategy software has not worked to my advantage. Going from ‘zero to one’ can be difficult when there is no reference point.
Tracking weekly website and content views helps me understand what’s working and needs adjusting.
Daniel Moreno
Senior Connections Manager at VMLY&R, London
While it might sound obvious, in the world of search, it’s easy to rely on SEO metrics like keyword rankings or SEO traffic to measure the success of our work. But these metrics alone don’t usually translate well when they reach a client-side CMO trying to understand the complete picture of the company’s marketing efforts.
So, by clearly defining and setting up goals that align with our client’s business objectives, we also ensure our reports speak the same language as our clients and make their lives easier when communicating success to other stakeholders.
MarTech Keywords in Organic Search
For a MarTech company, identifying the right keywords for organic search is essential as it contributes well to driving traffic. Additionally, it plays a vital role in creating brand awareness over the long term. Keyword research can uncover keywords to target, the popularity of these keywords, their ranking difficulty, and more.
In this section, we explored the main keywords’ metrics: search volume, ranking position, keyword difficulty (KD), estimated organic traffic, and ranking URL for each keyword. We will take into account such insights in our data set.
Despite having many keywords ranking in the top 100, some companies may still struggle to achieve significant traffic and visibility. This could be due to various factors, such as poor website design, low-quality content, or ineffective SEO strategies.
Daniel Moreno
Senior Connections Manager at VMLY&R, London
Can you cover the role of keyword research and targeting in your business line?
Our keyword research approach has transitioned from an SEO-led exercise that informs website copy and new content to more consumer-led research intended to guide larger initiatives not limited to just search. This new approach aims to break down and interpret the reason consumers search for specific topics when they search for them, and what challenges they face in finding answers to their questions. So, for our team at VMLY&R, keyword research has moved away from the traditional text-based research that just looks for keywords to place across text elements on a website into a more holistic search listening practice that helps us understand our clients’ audiences better.
Melissa Slawsky
Business Growth & Marketing Consultant, ArchetypeMarketing
Keywords — Value propositions and soundbites to communicate
- Internally with your team
- Externally with the world
Targeting – How you’re speaking to the clients that are ideal for your business.
Including demographic information that can be easily found. As well as psychographic information to ensure the message is more meaningful to the user.
One possible reason could be that the keyword research is not comprehensive enough. While having a large volume of keywords is important, ensuring that those keywords are relevant to the target audience and used effectively throughout the website is equally important. It’s also essential to stay up-to-**** with the latest search trends and adjust the keyword strategy accordingly.
Another possible reason could be that the company is not effectively targeting the right audience. This could be due to a lack of understanding of the audience’s search behavior and preferences or a failure to tailor the website and content to meet their needs.
Daniel Moreno
Senior Connections Manager at VMLY&R, London
How do you stay up to **** with the latest developments and trends in your niche?
It’s a team effort, but our Discoverability group has built two different processes to allow us to stay current with industry changes and platform updates:
First, we produce a monthly newsletter featuring the top developments in the world of search. This monthly exercise encourages everyone on our team to research what’s new in search, helping us spot smaller trends within our different client verticals (B2B, Commerce, Content Marketing, etc.) — and then help our clients and colleagues understand what it means specifically for them.
Second, we host weekly team meetings to share interesting and innovative pieces of work. We use this time to bring guest speakers from different tools to talk our team through their latest features and upcoming product roadmap. These meetings have also turned into a virtual stage to showcase our team members’ expertise and unique perspectives.
Melissa Slawsky
Business Growth & Marketing Consultant, ArchetypeMarketing
I like to stay at the forefront by bringing elements on the periphery of marketing, such as brand development, advertising, psychology, and business in general.
After five years, I prefer to ‘create’ the curve rather than follow it. The longer I’m in this business, the more I realize that marketing is just one piece of the puzzle for what I do to help a company grow. It’s simply an outward expression…
To resonate, you must sound first (but first, you must know what you want to say and who you’re talking to.)
The research on the keyword difficulty (KD) score on MarTech dataset found that over 35% of the keywords have medium-difficulty levels (KD between 21-40%), and 28% — easy-for-ranking keywords (KD between 0-20%). This metric predicts the difficulty level of ranking a keyword in organic search compared to its competitors, using various factors like the number of backlinks, URL complexity, search terms, and commercial intent of the query.
What does this mean for MarTech representatives?
Based on this information, it can be concluded that companies tend to find a balance between ranking difficulty and search volume. These keywords are not too easy to rank, which means they can still attract a significant amount of traffic, but they are not too difficult either and can be used with reasonable effort. Similarly, the high usage of easy-to-rank keywords may indicate that companies prioritize quick wins and low-hanging fruit in their SEO strategy, making them an ideal choice for companies with limited resources.
Daniel Moreno
Senior Connections Manager at VMLY&R, London
If the COVID-19 pandemic taught marketers anything, consumers’ behaviors could quickly change. Thus, our team has started thinking of keyword research as a means to understand customer mindsets and what they care about most. Our teams then synthesize and share these learnings.
The evolution of search platforms and the introduction of new tools have made it easier for our keyword research to evolve too. Adding new tools has made it more accessible to spot macro trends in searcher behavior. This evolution of our keyword research mindset now guides how we communicate to consumers and the online experiences we provide them. It helps us guide experts in other disciplines at VMLY&R and with our clients using strong intelligence.
Melissa Slawsky
Business Growth & Marketing Consultant, ArchetypeMarketing
The most common trend I see in clients is competing around the same high-performing but highly competitive short-tail keywords their competitors use. By zooming out and looking at a company’s true value, we can find more opportunities to stand out in the marketplace (i.e., blue ocean strategy.)
First, we create a better keyword strategy for short-tail keywords so they’re not competing against everybody else.
Next, we use the positioning statement to create less-competitive long-tail keywords that are branded to them.
The main goals are to a) eliminate wasted opportunities and risk and b) convey more meaning and value to the user.
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The Psychology Behind SERP Features and User Behavior
SERP features simplify search, provide more helpful results, and increase traffic and CTR. We analyzed the keywords and features in search of examined domains to analyze how MarTech leaders improve their search snippets.
Note! There is the possibility to display multiple unique elements for one keyword, such as breadcrumbs and stars.
Let’s analyze three common Google SERP features in MarTech-related searches.
- Snippet Breadcrumbs provide users with a navigation trail that shows the page’s location within a website. This can help users better understand the page’s context and improve the overall experience.
- People Also Ask displays additional questions related to the user’s original search query.
- Related Search displays additional search queries related to the user’s original search, allowing them to refine their search and find more targeted results.
What does this mean for MarTech representatives?
The prevalence of these SERP features in MarTech can be attributed to the industry’s focus on providing high-quality and relevant content to its audience. Optimizing their snippets to include relevant keywords and answering common questions can improve their visibility in search results and attract more qualified traffic. These features also provide users with more information and resources, improving their overall search experience and increasing the likelihood of returning to the site.
Melissa Slawsky
Business Growth & Marketing Consultant, ArchetypeMarketing
Can you discuss any unique or innovative features your company tried for better SEO?
One of the main differentiators for my business is utilizing the brand archetypes (by Carl Jung) to tap into desires, motivations, fears, and strategies that already exist in the minds of clients and customers.
Most marketers build personas and keyword strategies using demographics only. However, psychographics are required to create more meaning, value, and experience when speaking with clients and customers.
The new term “neuroscience marketing” has been tapping into this. However, most businesses cannot access EEG machines and brain scans… There is an algorithm that already exists.
Sector Representatives’ Backlink Profile
After conducting a Domain batch analysis for our top 10 MarTech websites, we assessed the quality of their backlink profiles using the following metrics:
- Serpstat Domain Rank (SDR) — a measure of a website’s domain authority on a scale of 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating greater authority.
- Referring domains — indicates the number of unique websites that link to the websites we analyzed.
- Backlinks — the specific links with unique IP addresses that point to the analyzed websites.
By analyzing these metrics, we can gain insight into the quality of a website’s backlink profile and assess its potential for improved search engine visibility. MarTech websites, like other industries, rely on high-quality backlinks to boost their domain authority. That’s why the SDR level of representatives is relatively high and tends to be close to 70 and more.
In its turn, the number of referring domains and referring IP subnets are two separate metrics that can provide a different point of view on a website’s backlink profile quality.
In the case of Hubspot, even though it has a high Serpstat Domain Rank, it may have fewer referring IP subnets. This can potentially impact the overall backlink profile and organic search rankings.
On the other hand, while the quantity of referring IP subnets may be similar between Hubspot and Mailchimp, the quality and relevance of those links can differ. Therefore, even if two websites have an equal number of referring IP subnets, the impact of those links on their search engine visibility can still vary.
Besides, our review shows that Mailchimp is the only website among the top 10 analyzed representatives using redirecting domains.
This means that when a user clicks on a link from another website, they are redirected to a different domain before landing on Mailchimp. Redirecting domains can impact a website’s backlink profile and organic search rankings.
What does this mean for MarTech representatives?
It is important to consider multiple metrics when analyzing a competitor website’s backlink profile to comprehensively understand its strengths and weaknesses.
Paid Promotion in Marketing Technology-Related Businesses
Paid Promotion in Marketing Technology-Related Businesses
According to our research, SEO-only usage is almost the same percentage as SEO and SEM in MarTech because search engine optimization is still a critical component of any digital marketing strategy. SEO involves optimizing a website’s content and structure to improve its visibility in organic results pages. Not all companies may have the budget or resources to invest in SEM (search engine marketing), making SEO more viable.
The easy level of competition is the typical signal for SEM because businesses often target keywords that are easier to rank for in paid search advertising campaigns. They do this to maximize their return on investment and ensure that their ads are shown to a broader audience without the high competition that can drive up costs. Keywords with lower competition are typically less expensive to bid on and can lead to a higher ROI for businesses. However, it is essential to note that companies should also target keywords relevant to their products or services and have a high search volume to attract the right audience.
What does this mean for MarTech representatives?
While paid promotion can be effective, it is significant for marketing technology businesses to carefully plan and execute campaigns to ensure a positive return on investment. This includes selecting the most relevant platforms for their target audience, creating compelling ad content, setting appropriate budgets and bids, and regularly monitoring and optimizing campaigns for the best results.
Conclusion
Melissa Slawsky
Business Growth & Marketing Consultant, ArchetypeMarketing
Marketing is an ever-evolving field that is best to be treated as an art and a science. Tactics may come and go, but principles will always remain the same.
Marketing technology and search engine optimization go hand in hand when achieving business success. MarTech companies leverage SEO as a critical component of their digital marketing strategy to improve their online presence, drive traffic, and increase visibility on search engines. This involves a strategic focus on ranking for long-tail keywords within their niche and creating high-quality content such that offer valuable insights to their target audience while incorporating relevant keywords to boost search engine rankings.
By effectively integrating SEO into their marketing efforts, MarTech companies can establish themselves as thought leaders, generate leads, and achieve sustainable business growth. As such, SEO continues to be a critical driver of success in the digital landscape, and MarTech companies must remain vigilant in optimizing their strategies to stay ahead of the curve.
FAQ
This approach uses data-driven insights and advanced analytics to ensure that every interaction with the brand is consistent and tailored to the customer’s preferences. Doing so, omnichannel marketing helps businesses build brand loyalty and increase customer engagement.
SDR considers the referring domains and the referring sites to those domains in the backlink index associated with the analyzed domain.
Visibility is an important metric indicating a domain’s performance in search results. It considers the click-through rate (CTR) and keywords volume for each domain’s content in the top 20 search results.
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