How ResTech Differentiates From MarTech and AdTech?

May 26, 2022 - 8 min read

In today’s increasingly data-driven business world, several technological solutions have been developed to harness the true power of information for market research. The three primary means of reaching out to customers are known as Marketing Technology, Advertising Technology, and, most recently, Research Technology—all respectively abbreviated as MarTech, AdTech, and ResTech.

Since the dawn of Industry 4.0, MarTech and AdTech have ruled the marketing world as the forces that replaced the time-consuming and expensive methods of traditional market research. However, these days, their practicality will only take you so far without the input from proper research. Thus, the new kid on the block comes to the rescue! And, as the latest step in the line of business solutions, ResTech has a lot to prove.

But, before we delve into ResTech’s points of differentiation, read our article on definition of ResTech first and then let’s first go over what MarTech and Adtech are.

MarTech

At its simplest, MarTech equips marketers with the technical support needed to address the requirements of today’s fast-paced and individualized world. As a collection of technological solutions, MarTech aids businesses in formulating ways of customer engagement in order to develop more effective marketing strategies. These solutions include various platforms that provide data and web analytics, automation, campaign and digital asset management, keyword research, and much more. Businesses typically select a permutation of MarTech channels that best fit their needs and configure them to create an ideal action plan.

As a part of MarTech, a marketer may use a combination of CRM, content creation, and social media tools to build a strong marketing strategy that informs the development, pricing, and placing of products. Yes, this marketer may have cut costs and saved time by using these tools; however, without the power of extensive research, this configuration of MarTech can only go so far.

While these technologies certainly make the target audience of a marketing campaign more accessible to the marketing team, there is still a reasonable distance to cover. Even with the utilization of the best MarTech solution, there is still guesswork to be done by the marketer regarding the needs, wants, and preferences of an audience—not to mention the giant margin of error that comes with the bias of self-reported data. To avoid these pitfalls, marketers need the information gained from thorough research to make insight-driven decisions.

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AdTech

Since advertising and marketing have always been intertwined, we can consider AdTech to have evolved in tandem with MarTech during the digital renaissance of marketing. In its most fundamental sense, AdTech is the collection of technologies and platforms used to organize and execute ad campaigns across multiple channels—from banner ads to social media.

The significance of AdTech can be truly appreciated when we consider the rapid expansion of advertisement channels in today’s world. Previously, when only a few major platforms for advertisement existed, it was manageable to plan and execute each ad individually. Now, with the advent of virtual, hybrid, and even mixed reality experiences, opportunities for diverse campaign strategies multiply each day. So, AdTech is helping advertisers keep up with the increasing possibilities of advertisement venues.

But, there’s a catch! As in all rapidly diversifying fields, advertising is becoming difficult to navigate. This new advertisement landscape is dangerous terrain even for the most battle-scarred advertising experts. Conventional CRM tools and digital marketing analytics are no longer enough to thoroughly customize ads according to consumer needs and preferences—information that is increasingly more available each day through public datasets.

These days, ads hardly target customer segments according to groups of socioeconomic backgrounds, broad lifestyle categories, or even age and gender. Now, both the content and the delivery of ads need to be refined and customized for each individual.

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ResTech

ResTech is following in the footsteps of MarTech and AdTech in fulfilling the requirements of a market that needs quick, flexible, and affordable solutions. In the dark ages of market research, marketers and advertisers depended on in-person interviews, focus groups, and self-reported surveys for qualitative and quantitative research. However, these methods were unscaleable and expensive because of the limitations of physical outreach and unreliable due to the biases people might have in wanting to show themselves in a better light.

Now, researchers have a much more reliable resource: Big Data! This resource is not only fast, cost-efficient, and scalable but also the key to unlocking information about the consumer’s true behaviors when no one is looking.

From ordering groceries to meeting new people, our day-to-day activities and our most basic needs are now digitalized. The pandemic has accelerated this shift even further, especially in areas like education and commerce. Most people are now constantly in front of a screen due to either remote work or online class arrangements. Thanks to our dependency on social media, even when we don’t have to be online, we usually are. And each time we make an online decision, we create consumer data. Whoever knows how to harness the power of this data has struck gold.

ResTech does just that!

ResTech provides marketing and advertising experts with a combination of qualitative and quantitative analyses, driven by Big Data, to develop the most comprehensive research outcomes. This way, your marketing and advertising strategies can accurately target the right consumers you need for your business or learn more about what your customers genuinely think about you.

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ResTech transforms human behavior into viable information by finding connections between data that the naked eye cannot. Complicated details like sentiment analysis and vocabulary are categorized into consumers' motivations, needs, and tension points so that marketing and advertising experts can make sense of qualitative data.

With a Social Media Listening tool, you can gather day-to-day information about any topic you want from online conversations people are having on social media, forums, news sources, and even the comments section of e-commerce platforms! Details like sentiment analysis and emotion score enable this feature to come in handy especially for crisis management, when complaints and misinformation about businesses start circulating.

Lifestyle Analysis

In the early days of market research, businesses often created customer segmentation to refine marketing and advertising strategies according to target audiences. However, thanks to ResTech, companies can now build and select their unique audiences according to complex lifestyle analyses. ResTech provides an extensive understanding of which industries, brands, shows, celebrities, and even political parties people have been interacting with. This, in turn, allows businesses to refine customer profiles, prioritize customer segments, and optimize precision targeting by creating what is now called “a segment of one.”

Trend Analysis

It goes without saying that trends are the lifeline of any industry. The first step in understanding a trend is to get to the bottom of why it’s so popular. Trend analysis helps experts determine what factors led the topics to gain traction and aid them in updating their strategies accordingly. You can also make predictions regarding the lifecycle of a trend. For instance, How fast is its popularity rising? Trends often fall in popularity as fast as they grow. Or has the trend peaked? You wouldn’t want to catch on too late and invest your resources in vain.

If you’d like to learn more about how ResTech works at Kimola, visit our support articles for detailed explanations.

How is ResTech Different?

As you may have figured out by now, there is no competition: ResTech is not here to replace MarTech or AdTech. It’s here to lead them.

MarTech and AdTech are not enough to satisfy the needs of consumers and target audiences in terms of a rapidly personalized world. While MarTech and AdTech are the more refined versions of the trial-and-error mentality of primitive market research practices, ResTech nearly diminishes that margin of error by creating a crystal clear customer profile in a more time and cost-efficient manner that is also scalable.

In order to enhance objectivity, it is important to note that it would be healthier to keep ResTech a separate resource that informs MarTech and AdTech every step of the way.

Wrap Up

It is always the fate of new technologies to be compared to older conventions. While some may scrutinize what the latest methodologies bring to the table, it is often the case that newer technologies develop in response to the shortcomings of the previous ones. But, do not think of ResTech as the end of MarTech and AdTech. In fact, ResTech might just be the fuel needed to rev up the capabilities of MarTech and AdTech.