Marketers opting for homebuilt tech despite strain on team

New research at Mailjet, surveying 600 marketing and IT professionals in the US, UK, and France, found that marketers are opting for homebuilt tech, despite losing a third of the week to usage.

PUBLISHED ON September 30, 2019

Marketers reported that, on average, they lose 13.8 hours per week on their homemade technology.

51% reported that working with a third-party provider was less time consuming
Data security was reported as the main concern with a homebuilt marketing solution
54% reported the cost of switching to a third-party was the main barrier

Cost weighed against productivity

When considering whether to use a homebuilt or a third-party solution, over a quarter of marketers (27% in UK and 30% in the US) said cost was perceived to be the biggest risk to using third-party technology, closely followed by data security (21% in the UK, and 20% in the US) and reliability (10% in the UK and 9% in the US).

Despite this, over half of the respondents using a homebuilt solution reported that they found it to be more time consuming than using third-party technology. So while a homebuilt solution might be seen as cheaper, it could also potentially be the more unproductive solution.

In addition, 39% of respondents said they were still looking for talent that possessed the right skills to manage their internal infrastructure. This is due to the gaps identified in their own team to keep up with new processes, best practices, and tools.

Deciding whether or not to trust your homebuilt solution to manage your marketing capabilities, or procure a third-party provider to reduce the workload on the team, are key considerations. Finding the right technology partner with the necessary expertise and on-going consulting capabilities can often reduce the financial and resource cost of an already stretched team.

Judy Boniface Chief Customer & Marketing Officer at Mailjet

The importance of data privacy and security

Data security was quite a divisive subject between the UK and the US.

While 51% of UK marketers reported that data security was a main barrier to outsourcing to a third-party, it was also selected as the second biggest concern with a homebuilt solution, beat only by cost. UK marketers are wary of a third-party’s ability to prevent data issues or breaches, but they are also resistant to placing trust in their own homebuilt technology. Meanwhile, only 34% of US marketers cite data security as a main barrier to outsourcing, but are equally concerned about their own internal security capabilities.

Maintaining an infrastructure that protects businesses’ data properly can be a full-time job. Not to mention keeping up with the ever-evolving laws and practices that have to be monitored and followed diligently. Data privacy and security has to be a top priority for businesses in a post GDPR world, but also the safe storage of confidential customer information.

Choosing the right external provider that can maintain state of the art security and privacy practices will also add an additional level of data protection and reassurance for companies that may not have the right skills and resources to provide the highest standards in-house.

Judy Boniface Chief Customer & Marketing Officer at Mailjet

Email Infrastructure

In the UK, email marketing is among the most commonly used homebuilt solutions at 73%, surpassed only by advertising tools at 77% and project management tools at 76%. With the prevalence of homebuilt email marketing, it is important to assess its performance routinely and potentially consider alternate options. Notably, internal transactional email solutions is close behind at 71%.

In contrast, it is far more common to outsource email infrastructure in the US, with only 65% of respondents using their own internal email marketing services, and even less (58%) using an internal transactional email solution.

There are a couple key considerations that may indicate that it’s time to switch from a homebuilt solution to a third-party infrastructure. These considerations could also help validate that your homebuilt solution is capable of handling your email needs. So let’s take a quick look at some of these considerations:

Deliverability: Arguably, the most important feature of your email infrastructure is its ability to land your emails in the inbox. Maintaining deliverability through the collection and analysis of statistics, as well as building and correctly setting up an internal infrastructure can be difficult.
Cost: Building and maintaining an infrastructure capable of handling your sending can be costly, but it does have to be weighed against the cost of outsourcing.
Data Privacy & Security: A large concern for all companies, keeping your data under your own roof may be the safest choice for you. On the other hand, ESPs may have certifications that better fortify them to protect your data, as well as free up space for you by providing all the storage you need to private information stored.
Scalability: As your business grows, it’s important to consider if your homebuilt infrastructure will be able to grow with it and what the costs involved will be, both monetarily and for growing your workforce.
Maintenance & Support:Email infrastructure needs constant care because if there is an issue in your sending, it can interrupt the entire marketing machine. You’ll have to make sure you have the right team in place, whether it’s one you built in-house, or the support team offered by your ESP.
Stats & Analytics: The bread and butter of your emailing, making sure you have a robust stats & analytics system in place can make all the difference in your sending. Both the collection and storage of statistics can take up a lot of room, but they’re necessary to track and improve your sending.
Template Builder: Templates may seem like a small thing, but they begin to take up more and more of your developer resources as your business grows. Additionally, ensuring that all templates are responsive is necessary to maintain engagement.

If you are interested in learning more about the key considerations and what options you have to choose from, you can download The Email Infrastructure Handbook: Homebuilt vs Outsourced below.

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