31 Marketing Technologies

John Spacey, updated on March 19, 2021

Marketing technology is a broad area of information technology that includes tools for advertising, promotion, brand management, sales, customer service and marketing operations. The following are general types or categories of marketing technology.

Ad Exchanges

Markets for advertising that connect multiple ad networks.

Ad Servers

Platforms that deliver ads including optimization and reporting features.

Analytics

Analytics is the discovery of meaningful information in data. Often specialized to a particular type of data, such as analysis of web traffic or social media.

Campaign Management

Tools that coordinate marketing campaigns across multiple channels.

Content Delivery Network

Cloud platforms that allow delivery of content from data centers in different regions designed to speed delivery by proximity to users. A content delivery network typically has significant capacity that allows traffic to scale up and down as required.

Content Management

Platforms for publishing and managing content and media.

Conversion Optimization

Tools that seek to optimize the number of website visitors that take a specific action such as buying something. Techniques may include A/B testing or algorithms designed to discover effective combinations of headlines, copy, images, videos and approaches.

Customer Relationship Management

Large platforms that can be used to manage marketing, marketing operations, sales and customer service functions. May include tools for social media management, multi-channel advertising, content management, analytics and workflow.

Dashboards

Reporting tools that provide a one page realtime view of metrics .

Database Marketing

A category of tools that support direct marketing such as email and direct mail.

Decision Support Systems

A generic term for technologies that support marketing decisions. For example, a decision support platform may provide market data to assist in pricing, product or advertising decisions.

Demand Side Platform

Platforms that allow advertisers to bid for digital advertising inventory in real time. Allows advertisers to target customers based on factors such as location, context, behavior and demographics.

Digital Asset Management

Technologies that manage digital assets such as media and marketing collateral.

Ecommerce

A broad term for any technology that supports electronic business models.

Enterprise Marketing Management

Large marketing packages designed to unify marketing functions on a single platform.

Event Driven Marketing

Event processing technologies that can be used to identify and respond to events such as reviews, social media posts, market changes and customer actions.

Gamification Techniques

The use of game techniques in marketing content, applications and merchandising displays.

Lead Management

Technologies for acquiring, qualifying and managing leads.

Marketing Automation

Automation of repetitive, high speed tasks and activities such as online advertising bids and direct marketing techniques using business rules or algorithms.

Marketing Intelligence

Data providers for customer and market information such as prices.

Marketing Resource Management

Platforms for marketing operations processes such as planning, budgeting, executing, and measuring marketing campaigns.

Mass Customization

A business model that allows customers to customize their products, often using interactive design technologies.

Media Production

Tools for production of media such as video editing software.

Publishing Tools

Technologies for publishing content such as a blog platform.

Remarketing

Advertising that targets customers who have visited your website or used your mobile app recently.

Sales Force Automation

Suites of productivity tools for salespeople including functions such as lead, opportunity, contact, proposal and order management. Orchestrates the sales process and often acts as the primary source of customer data for an organization.

Social Media

Platforms that allow users to create and share content. Allows you to engage customers by creating and sharing content or advertising. Also a critical source of data as a venue for customers to express their opinions about your brand.