MarTech Explained, Before Your Brand Misses The Train
Summarise this blog
Table of Contents
Key Takeaways
- MarTech, short for marketing technology, is the use of software to manage, store, analyse and track marketing data, increasingly with AI deciding what each customer sees.
- It is not new, but economic change and the pandemic shifted consumer behaviour so sharply that MarTech became standard practice rather than an edge.
- Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager and Google Search Console cost nothing and cover measurement, tagging and search performance.
- Meta Business Suite runs Facebook and Instagram from one place at no cost; Parabola connects data sources from a no-cost tier; Power BI turns data into dashboards from $14 a user a month.
- Google Optimize, once a staple, was retired in September 2023, so any stack built on it needs a replacement.
As we always say, the world changes constantly, and marketing most of all, where new technology and tools keep being adopted to make the work as effective as it can be. One of those technologies is MarTech. So what is this kind of tool, and how does it make marketing work better? This article answers both, starting with what is MarTech.
What Is MarTech?
MarTech is short for marketing technology: marketing that uses modern technology as its core tool for managing, storing, analysing and tracking data. It also brings in artificial intelligence (AI) to analyse data and customer interests, so each user sees what answers their needs, which lifts results as well. That is the martech meaning in one line.
MarTech may sound new, but developing marketing with the help of modern technology has gone on for years. What changed was the world: the economy, and the COVID-19 pandemic, turned consumer behaviour upside down, which drew marketers to MarTech as a way to solve the problems that followed, until MarTech became part of everyday marketing.
What Does MarTech Include?
Countless technologies are used in marketing to lift its effectiveness. Here are the martech tools in widest use, the ones a working martech stack is usually built on.
Google Analytics
Most marketers know this name well, because it is so widely used and comes with features for analysing and storing data, which feeds back into marketing plans, advertising and content, so the audience is reached and served more precisely.
If you have never used Google Analytics, we recommend trying it, because good marketing rests on research and good planning, which build a strong, stable marketing foundation.
Is it free? Google Analytics costs nothing for a small or medium brand. The enterprise version, Google Analytics 360, is sold on contract and does not have a published price; third-party reports put the entry point at around $50,000 a year.
Google Tag Manager
Another MarTech tool from Google in wide use, Google Tag Manager lets marketers install and manage the tracking tags for analytics, advertising and other tools from one container, without editing the website’s code each time. It is the usual route for installing Google Analytics and advertising pixels, and it keeps the measurement layer tidy as the stack grows.
Is it free? Google Tag Manager costs nothing to use.
Google Search Console
If you are a marketer who wants the website and its SEO articles to rank on the first pages, do not miss Google Search Console. It gives Google your website’s information to crawl and index for ranking, and its Performance report shows how the site performs in search and what to improve for better results.
Is it free? Google Search Console costs nothing to use.
Meta Business Suite
Anyone with a Facebook page or an Instagram account for marketing will know this MarTech tool. It manages both Facebook and Instagram accounts from one place: posting, replying to messages, adding and managing products and services, and analytics that show how each post performed. If your brand is on both Facebook and Instagram, this is not a tool to miss.
Is it free? Meta Business Suite costs nothing to use.
Parabola
It would be fair to say this tool exists for marketing, because Parabola connects to your applications and pulls their data into one place to display, so marketers can see how the marketing plan is performing across channels, with customer data and details managed alongside.
If you run an online brand, Parabola is another tool that makes marketing easier.
Is it free? Parabola has a no-cost Basic plan for a single user, with paid plans from around $20 a user a month.
Power BI
Power BI is a business intelligence MarTech tool from the software giant Microsoft, notable for data visualisation that presents insights as graphs, maps and tables, already organised, which takes much of the difficulty out of reading data.
Is it free? Power BI Pro costs $14 a user a month and Premium Per User $24, both since 1 April 2025; capacity-based plans for large organisations are priced separately through Microsoft Fabric.
Summary
The tools above are only part of MarTech, because many more help marketers work more easily and effectively. The ones here suit marketing work of every size, and they are marketing technology that can be applied to almost any kind of work.
If you would rather have a team that already runs this stack every day, Primal is a digital marketing agency in Bangkok that builds and reads it for brands across industries. Talk to us today.
Frequently Asked Questions About MarTech (FAQs)
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What is MarTech in simple terms? | MarTech is the software marketers use to plan, run, measure and automate marketing: analytics, tag management, advertising platforms, CRM, email tools and dashboards. The word is a blend of marketing and technology, and a brand’s set of these tools is its martech stack. |
| What is a martech stack? | The combination of marketing tools a brand uses together, connected so data flows between them. A basic stack is Google Analytics for measurement, Google Tag Manager to install tags, Search Console for search performance, Meta Business Suite for social, and a dashboard tool such as Power BI or Looker Studio to report it all. |
| Which martech tools cost nothing? | Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Google Search Console and Meta Business Suite cost nothing. Parabola and most CRM and email tools have a no-cost tier with limits. Power BI charges per user, with a no-cost desktop version for building reports locally. |
| What replaced Google Optimize? | Nothing from Google. Optimize was retired on 30 September 2023, and Google pointed users to third-party A/B testing tools that integrate with GA4, such as VWO, Optimizely and AB Tasty. For most brands the first step is a tag manager and analytics; testing tools come once there are enough visits to test on. |
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