Aligning your tech stack to your business goals is key

The quest for growth in our digital age demands that you focus on understanding your customers. Their journey through your product, from initial spark to loyal advocate, holds the key to unlocking revenue, retention, and achieving high-reaching business goals. But navigating through the vast landscape of growth technologies can feel overwhelming. How do you build a tech stack that aligns with your unique objectives and empowers you to personalize every step of the customer journey? 

How to start driving growth with your tech stack

1.From goals to tech: Reverse engineering your tech stack 

The first step isn’t about tools, it's about clarity and defining your overarching business goals. We suggest getting input cross-departmentally because development, product, marketing, design, and other stakeholders may view this differently. These diverse perspectives can ensure you choose tools that address all aspects of the customer journey and that they align with your broader business objectives. 

Some questions to ask yourself: Are you focused on acquiring new users, or nurturing long-term loyalty? Do you have specific revenue targets or key performance indicators (KPIs) to meet? These objectives will become the map guiding your tech stack construction and in which order. 

2. Map the landscape: Understand your customer journey

With your end goals in sight, delve into the customer journey. What touchpoints do users encounter? What are their pain points and motivations? Tools like customer data platforms (CDPs) can help you stitch together a holistic view and understand user behavior across channels and devices. Behavioral analytics platforms provide vital insights into user engagement and conversion points that can uncover where to optimize and personalize. 

3. Equip your users: Select the correct tools 

Choose the tools that empower you to act on the insights gained from your behavioral data. Consider solutions that offer:

– Attribution tracking: Understand what marketing channels drive users to your product. This will allow you to optimize your acquisition efforts and lower your costs.

– Omnichannel messaging: Engage users on their preferred platforms with personalized, timely messages that nudge them toward your goals. Pick a platform that you have a positive experience with – customer service matters here. We have seen this play out time and time again.

– Experimentation and A/B testing/Multivariant testing: Continuously test and refine your approach to ensure your personalization efforts hit the mark and move the needle.

– Location intelligence: Leverage user location data to deliver relevant messages and experiences based on their context. Deliver high-quality maps and auto address fill-in for better user experience.

Example of a growth technology stack

4. Moving quickly: Insights to hyper-personalization 

With the right tools in place, you can unlock the power of personalization. Craft targeted messages based on user behavior, preferences, and real-time actions. Imagine welcoming users with relevant offers, guiding them through onboarding with helpful nudges, and rewarding loyal customers with exclusive experiences or affiliate payouts. This journey-based approach fosters engagement, drives conversions, and ultimately fuels your lofty business goals. 

5. Start small, scale smart: Where to start 

If you want the furthest reach and the biggest bang for your buck – start with Omnichannel messaging. If you aren’t considering an omnichannel messaging tool, please reconsider because your competition is more than likely already leveraging it. This choice allows you to engage directly with your users on their preferred channels, fostering immediate interactions and gathering behavioral data in real time. While light, the capabilities around basic insights and user preferences will inform your personalization efforts.

Next, move to integrating a behavioral analytics platform to visualize the impact of product changes and your messaging efforts. You will gain deeper insights into user behaviors and have comprehensive data on engagement and conversion. If your behavioral platform does not have a CDP, consider these steps in tandem as a CDP will unify data from various sources and provide data governance and hygiene which is key as you add additional platforms. 

From there, add attribution for a more seamless user experience and understanding which marketing channels drive the most valuable users. This can help you allocate resources effectively. 

Adding location capabilities can further engagement efforts and personalized experiences in very positive ways when handled responsibly. Location can be used to make the customer experience feel effortless and timely, both concepts that users want. 

This approach focuses on immediate engagement, a foundation of insights, optimization of acquisition efforts, and contextualized experiences. If you are starting from scratch and plan to scale into new platforms very quickly, we would suggest starting with your CDP and analytics, and moving to messaging and beyond. 

In conclusion

Building your growth tech stack is an ongoing process, not a one-time destination. It's smart to continuously evaluate and measure the success of your tooling. Adapting as your business and customer needs evolve will keep you growing sustainably. 

The most strategic option isn’t always the most expensive or flashiest. By considering your various stakeholders, using data as your compass, prioritizing integration, and focusing on a few impactful touchpoints, you can lay a solid foundation for scaling. Remember, the best tools are those that seamlessly integrate with your existing infrastructure and scale with your needs. 

Contact Alex Gallus, Sr. Manager of Growth at Fueled, to brainstorm or set up an audit to determine how to structure your growth tech stack to match your business goals.