Too Much Martech? How to Start Integrating

Alongside the launch of Jeto’s API (beta), we had a chat with our VP Product, David Desrosiers about martech integration. Read on for his insights on:

Why marketing operations leaders are prioritizing martech integration

“Nowadays, you can’t be a standalone application, with no API,” David told us, “no single app can accomplish everything you need when it comes to campaign operations.”

An API decouples the front-end of a software from it’s back-end, making it possible to combine functionalities of your various technologies where you need.

“By its nature, Jeto is an integrated solution, it works hand-in-hand with Marketo.” What’s changed is market demand for integration. “In the last couple of years, Jeto being integrable to additional technologies is one of the key criteria potential clients ask about.”

Why are integrations top of mind for marketing operations leaders? David has a hunch:

It’s proven that if you add more tools – without integration – you actually add more manual, operational tasks. That’s more duplicate data entry and manual work for your team.

So companies are increasingly weighing efficiency gains and losses in SaaS purchase decisions.

A related point is the challenge of retaining talent and the employee experience. “We’ve seen that people will choose a job based on the tech stack of the employer. People want to like their job, they want to like what they’re doing, day-to-day. Disconnected systems create poor user experiences.”

How to tackle the complexity of martech integration in manageable increments

The project of integrating your martech stack is daunting, especially if you are a large enterprise with legacy systems. But whether you are an established or fast-growing organization, the starting point is the same: “Map the campaign creation process from A to Z.”

“Make sure to note what activities happen in which tool from request, to content creation, all the way to post campaign reporting,” David said. “Then layer on top who is doing what.”

This may sound like an extensive project, but it’s one you can tackle with an agile approach in mind.

David advises beta clients to do their process mapping in a very short period of time. Then, act quickly to identify inefficiencies and make improvements iteratively. Avoid aiming for a complete rewiring of your systems.

Here’s what to do once you have your process map:

1. Identify bottlenecks: Surface the number of tools involved, note the handoffs, duplicated activities, and redundant tasks such as manual data entry.
2. Determine how you want to rewrite your workflow: Look for possible API integrations and automation.
3. Prioritize what to tackle first: Put an indicator of the size of the opportunity you are trying to seize and another indicator for the expected effort. This will surface which integration would be most profitable – we can help evaluate that if you sign up for the Jeto API beta.

(For more info about Six Sigma business process optimization, David recommends this article from the PMI Institute.)

Building vs. buying integrations: iPaaS, low-code, no-code & other considerations

Building your own integrations is easier than ever, thanks to the expansion of platforms like Workato, Zapier, or Mendix.

According to David, “these platforms are democratizing API Integration. You can use them not only to integrate your stack, but also to create custom applications.”

Does this mean that you should jump right into building instead of buying something that already exists on the market? Ultimately, you need to have a good understanding of the pros and cons and decide based on your specific needs and resources.

Though iPaaS are low-code products, you still need a background in solutions architecture to manage them.

“You need to be able to do data transformation, data mapping, error handling, and very advanced logic. It also helps to have basic knowledge of certain development languages in order to take full advantage of iPaaS.”

Here’s David’s simple formula to keep in mind as you decide, “compare the cost of building or buying with the ROI in efficiency gains.”

“Of course, I would recommend you buy Jeto,” David said. “We’ve put 4 years of development in. So you can try to catch up… or just buy it.”

It looks simple on the surface, but we’ve got one of the deepest API integrations with Marketo today. Jeto can create Marketo programs, update content, preview email and landing pages and remotely delete modules from native marketo assets. We’re talking about hundreds of API calls per campaign.

Combining Jeto’s API (beta) and iPaaS as a value multiplicator

Simply using Jeto leads to tremendous gains in efficiency for Marketo users.

“Jeto’s core strength is to standardize campaign input, automate the Marketo program build and help manage end-to-end campaign lifecycle. And we’ve packaged it into a simplified user interface that non-technical people can use – and it’s been proven to do that very effectively.”

But the next phase for David and his team is to expand the possible efficiency gains even further, with the release of Jeto’s API in beta mode (you can sign up here by the way!)

That release will be followed closely by the June launch of a Jeto’s Workato connector (beta) and soon after a Zapier connector.

Using Jeto’s API alongside iPaaS solutions is already yielding interesting results for beta candidates.

iPaaS solutions are enabling our beta clients to create and launch Marketo programs from their existing project management tool. They’re also triggering downstream actions from Jeto like activity logs or event creation in tools like SalesForce, GoToWebinar and more.