So far, our journey has taken us over the daunting mountain of list growth and through the murky jungle of the Amazon. Our third stop has taken us to the Bermuda Triangle… of Technology Glitches. DMi partners has seen many clients run into problems with the technologies they use. Whether it be underutilizing or overutilizing, the technology we use can at times feel overwhelming and disorienting. The market is so saturated with new versions, updates, or betas that we may feel in over our head. Just like the Bermuda Triangle, it is important to have all your tools in tip-top shape, so you don’t get lost out there. Here are our top ideas to optimize your technologies:

1. Maximize investment in your current technology
So you’ve taken a pitch from a big tech vendor, you’ve been sold on it being the silver bullet to scale your business, and you’ve signed on the dotted line. There’s only one (huge) problem now - you have no idea how to use it! Whether you’re investing in a major ESP, CRM, CMS, or any other tech platform, you’d better make sure you know how to use all its features to really extract that value you were initially promised. To master your new tool, consider signing up for training classes, taking part in online training programs (Salesforce’s Trailhead for example), or signing on with a 3rd party with expertise in the platform to handle the day to day management. DMi has been called in multiple times to take an existing piece of technology and really put it to use, so our client could stop flushing their tech budget down the drain and start extracting some real value.

2. Data Validation
Another common technology investment mistake we see advertisers make is waiting until they experience a problem to invest in a data validation solution. When you have a database of opt-in consumers that you email market to, it can be tempting to defer on making an annual investment in verifying the database is still safe to send to - especially when you haven’t had any deliverability issues. But the costs you incur by waiting to solve a deliverability issue can far exceed the costs of doing a regular, proactive health check. These checks on the database will help you remove any records that could prove to be landmines down the road. Deliverability solutions alone can be more expensive than entire database validations. When you factor in any lost revenue as a result of unplanned downtime in your database marketing campaigns, this is a technology investment that is easy to justify.

3. Impact Insights
You need an attribution tracking solution that has streamlined workflows to recruit and onboard each partner. You will want access to performance metrics and the tools to identify fraudulent traffic. To survive navigation of the Bermuda Triangle you will need custom tracking solutions. We feel the Impact Radius platform can handle nuanced program requirements and the ability to track consumers across channels. Today’s affiliate landscape is changing from coupon and loyalty efforts to now encompass social media influencers and even paid media partners. We all know it is unlikely the path leading to a consumer’s purchase is direct. As an individual user interacts and engages with various marketing efforts and campaigns, each effort contributes a piece to the attribution puzzle contributing towards the eventual conversion.

4. Flex Scaling Servers
Your hosting costs do not necessarily need to be a flat rate every month. For our larger ecommerce clients that see major fluctuations in traffic by season, we have structured their servers and hosting environment to be flexible and easily scalable. During “normal” months, we can have a lower volume of servers online, which keeps our costs down. During peak times, like the holidays or special releases with a major PR and marketing push, we can add servers to the hosting environment in minutes. This increases the hosting costs for those times, but once the rush dies down, we can scale back down. This dynamic model has allowed us to cut annual hosting costs for some clients by as much as 50%.

5. Ecommerce Apps, Extensions, and Plug-Ins
If you’re looking to power up your ecommerce site, take a good look at that platform’s app or extension Marketplace. For platforms like Shopify and Magento, we very often find that functionality that we’re looking to add to the site can be done by adding a free or very affordable add-on. Some functionality we’ve added recently with free or low-cost apps:

1. Stacking multiple coupons in Shopify, allowing our affiliate partners to offer even better deals to their users
2. Product reviews on Shopify
3. Adding a gift with purchase in Magento
4. Address validation via the Google Maps API in Magento

By digging into your E-commerce platform’s add-on marketplace, you’ll be surprised by the functionality you can add for free, rather than paying a 3rd party or having an in-house developer build new features.

6. Overuse of Plug-Ins
Now that we’ve told you how amazing 3rd party plug-ins can be, now we can tell you to be careful with them! Using plugins is a great way to save on development time and cut your costs down. If there’s a feature you want to incorporate into your website, there’s a good chance someone has already turned it into a plug-in. However, it is important to remember not to get carried away. Many of these plugins (or “apps” on some platforms) have a wide variety of features for a ton of flexibility. That seems great on the surface, but make sure you really need that plugin before you use it, and make sure it’s only running where it needs to. These feature-rich plugins have a lot of bloat in the code, and the more plugins you use, the more this code adds up. If overused or abused, they will slow down your site. This will not only frustrate users, leading to a higher bounce rate and a lower return rate, but will also hurt your SEO score. On top of that, the more plugins you use, the more you must manage and keep updated. CMS’s update their code often for security enhancements, bug fixes, and feature additions. Each time they do this (or each time your plugin does the same), there’s a chance of something breaking. Plugins are great but choose them carefully and only when necessary.

7. Finding tech that integrates well together
When choosing different technologies and SAAS providers, make the most out of your investments by choosing software that integrates well together. Tech companies are very educated on what services will work well with their platform and are starting to go out of their way to work with other tech companies in their field so that they all play nice together. Shopify is a great example, since many other tech companies are recognizing the platform’s popularity and ease of use. Many are creating integrations to make your life as seamless and automated as possible. Companies like Quickbooks, Shipstation, and Mailchimp have all created Shopify apps that allow you to take the guesswork out of everything from accounting to logistics to customer communication. Even further, some of these technologies are recognizing that they’re commonly used in Shopify together and thus are creating integrations that allow their apps to communicate with each other - even outside of Shopify. But don’t worry, you don’t have to be an E-commerce company to take advantage of this. Nearly every popular platform and piece of technology has integrations with others, so choose wisely and take full advantage of this. And even if your tech doesn’t have integrations built in yet, third party platforms like ifttt.com and Zapier give you the option to have your tech communicate with each other, using their software as a middleman. The possibilities are endless.

8. Free Tech
If it’s free, it’s for me! Since the internet has made knowledge more ubiquitous, more and more free tools have become available. These free services span the arena of digital marketing service and can be extremely helpful in improving your business. Here are a few tools that we find helpful:

• Site Speed test (with suggested fixes)
• Website quality check with suggested fixes (accessibility, experience, marketing, technology)
• Accessibility checker (protect yourself from lawsuits and make sure your site is accessible)
• Website Heatmap Generator - Clickheat

Furthermore, we use a great number of platforms for our SEO purposes. Here is what we use:

• Google Analytics
• Google Keyword Planner
• Google Search Console
• SEM Rush
• Moz Open Site Explorer
• Ahrefs
• Yoast SEO for Wordpress