TekStack x ClickDimensions: Integrated Marketing & Sales for Tech Companies

We recently announced a partnership deal with ClickDimensions and I am really excited about what this will bring for our customers.

In mature B2B SaaS companies, sales and marketing need to be an integrated team, looking at the exact same metrics. No vanity metrics; all focus should be on results with a common view of leading indicators.

In young but maturing companies, marketing should be made as easy as possible. These companies are trying to hit a stride and don’t have time or money to waste on optimizing business processes like marketing operations, or buying a bunch of expensive tools.

Here is what our ClickDimensions partnership means for our customers and future customers.

One common database: TekStack x ClickDimensions

This is probably the biggest thing. Having your CRM, Marketing Automation platform, and Outbound Sequence engine all pulling from the same system of record. Not an “integration”, but actually in the same environment. This seems basic, but it’s uncommon, and very important when dealing with fluid buying cycles found in B2B SaaS. How many times have you seen your marketing team wanting to launch a new campaign and there being a battle with sales over who should and should not be included in that list? This is impossible to manage if your three main systems are all different vendors and databases. This is particularly true with marketing to existing customers as existing lists get dated very quickly.

TekStack’s One Common database allows your CRM, Marketing Automation platform, and Outbound Sequence engine to all pull from the same system of record.

Account Centric Approach

TekStack has always taken an account-centric approach to managing the funnel. We combine an account-centric strategy with Forrester’s B2B Revenue Waterfall. Many companies use the concept of a Lead and convert it into an Opportunity. I used to deploy this approach too until I learned better. This is the source of poor data hygiene for most organizations; and leads to more harm than good.

With ClickDimensions, inbound leads are mapped as contacts which are mapped to accounts. Key behaviors like web form fill, event registrations, page visits, email clicks are all tracked to the contact. Combining key events with Campaign Responses gives marketers what they always wanted. Middle touch attribution! Not possible with the lead entity because when they are converted, all that history floats away.

Account-centric approach

Lead scoring that rolls up to the Account

As an extension of the account-centric approach, with the ClickDimensions piece, we combine contact lead scoring. So, let’s say you have 10,000 accounts in your CRM database. How do you know which account is showing interest in your product? This is what lead scoring is for, attribute buyer behaviors into points, when the points cross a certain threshold, maybe they are ready to talk to a seller, but not beforehand. The key here is that with this integration we combine the lead score across all contacts on an account, not just one contact because sometimes the behavior isn’t noticeable with a single contact. We also have the SOP available OOTB so you don’t need to spend endless hours debating a best practice, and then configuring/customizing your way to make it work. It’s all done for you!

SOPs!

We’ve prebuilt all the SOPs your marketing organization will need. I don’t know how many days/weeks I’ve dedicated to this topic alone in my last 20 years running sales & marketing teams. I always wish someone would have just given me the best OOTB tool, process, and reports to run. Here are some examples:

• How to handle inbound BOFU form fills like “Request a Demo”
• How to handle inbound TOFU form fills such as whitepaper downloads
• How to manage opt-in subscriptions
• How to run nurture programs with built-in cadences that have conditional flows
• How to integrate 1:N nurture marketing with 1:1 sales outreach making sure the same contact isn’t pummeled in emails.
• How best to use lead scoring
• When to send leads to sales, and when not to.
• How to track and measure campaign performance
• How to handle events and event follow-up
• Plus so many more….

Campaign Performance: TekStack x ClickDimensions

Everything that marketing does can be tied to a campaign. SEO, Paid programs, events, and so on.  A campaign can identify costs (basic) but now we can automatically attribute two key pieces. First, something called a campaign response. Basically, this gives you attribution that can be tied to the contact level. Something most marketing teams are missing. They capture a ‘lead source’ but usually this is heavily manipulated data and doesn’t tell the whole story.

Well, now we can see the entire journey in one place and also capture the first and last lead source. Second, we can tie the campaign and sequence information to the Opportunity Lead Source. What does this do? Basically ties opportunity creation to marketing-based lead sources. We track generated funnel AND actual ARR back to the campaign. When you combine TekStack’s ability to track funnel attrition and velocity, you basically get a blueprint for how to generate more demand in less time for less money; and stop spending on programs that aren’t working.

Marketing visibility for Sellers: TekStack x ClickDimensions

Sellers should be able to gain a clear picture of everything that is being communicated. They should easily see all marketing emails, page views, web form submissions, events attended, and more. From a single pane of glass.

Contacts should flow easily between 1:N and 1:1 marketing

The healthiest B2B SaaS company has a constant flow across inbound and outbound channels. When a seller disqualifies a deal, it should automatically be put into a nurture campaign. When a nurture contact shows interest, it should be presented to a seller to be included in an outbound sequence. These workflows are pre-built and simplified down to a button click, or automated campaign trigger.

Buyer intent should kick off an action

Key buying behaviors like visiting your pricing page should spark an immediate response from a seller aided by an email campaign offering more information to the buyer. A demo request form should have an instantaneous response and put that account into a Prioritized account stage. This is all possible with Campaign Automation functionality. You can automate communication to your buyer, notify sellers, and update records without any human interaction.

TekStack’s partnership with ClickDimensions offer a fully automated campaign functionality

Marketers should have clear data on Campaign performance

The biggest letdown of most marketing automation platforms is how difficult it is to tie the activity from marketing into results for the company. We’ve relied on this false prophet of ‘multi-touch attribution’ models which provides suspect results at best. We prefer a first and last touch attribution with the ability to tie actual sales opportunities to specific campaigns so that marketing is updated on the total pipe created and won against that campaign. Multi-touch does actually work with our integrated marketing app but we don’t advise reporting against it outside the marketing team, only used for reference by the team to figure out what is working and not working.

Your ‘smarketing’ tech stack should be cost-efficient

Probably the most important piece. A lot of organizations are paying through the roof on their CRM, sales enablement, and marketing automation technology stacks. In addition to those subscription fees, you also need to account for the costs associated with reporting tools and data management.

Our approach is different; provide a no-frills, fully capable technology stack for a fraction of the cost. Want to compare your capabilities today with what we can deliver?  Get in touch here!

About TekStack

TekStack is built to give B2B software and service companies every competitive advantage. Sales, Customer Success, Subscription Management, Billing & Invoicing, Professional Services Automation, and Helpdesk from one platform. Powered by the Power Platform, TekStack is a certified Microsoft app and fully integrates with modern work tools like Outlook, Office 365, Teams, and Power BI.

About ClickDimensions

Founded in 2010, ClickDimensions is the leading marketing platform for Microsoft Dynamics, with more than 3,700 customers around the globe and a partner network that spans 76 countries today. As The Marketing Cloud for Microsoft Dynamics™, ClickDimensions is redefining how marketers work and attain results with the only unified marketing technology, analytics, and services platform in the market. Made exclusively for and natively built within Dynamics, ClickDimensions allows marketers to leverage technology to its full potential by providing built-in measurable results and insights into revenue impact with world-class services to drive continual improvement. For more information, visit www.clickdimensions.com, follow @ClickDimensions on Twitter, or email press@clickdimensions.com.