As marketers we have a lot of different options to use third party tools to help us do our jobs better, faster and more efficiently. However, in this blog post we’d like to talk about why we don’t use any external tool to manage our marketing campaigns on different platforms.

You can check the video we made here!

Similar functionality

The first reason why we don’t use third party tools is their functionalities, though more complete, do not differ much from the native platforms. As a result, using native tools makes more sense for our workflow. However, if you require a very specific feature, you may end up having to go the third party route.

Confusion

Over the last few years there has been a boom in companies developing new tools and platforms to improve platforms like Facebook. Because of that, it can be a bit daunting to choose the right one for you. It is a good rule of thumb to choose a native tool as a starting point and later on move to a more specialised platform.

Cost

New platforms come in all shapes and their features range quite a bit, but it's a common business model to have self-served service as well as a managed one.

In the first case, you pay a subscription to use the software and you also benefit from having some support hours.

The other way is to have an account manager who will help you extract all the juice from the software. However, this typically requires a higher advertising budget as well as higher fees (normally linked to the ad spend).

Remember, the more you need, the higher the cost.

Volumes

This one is highly variable from company to company, but for us, who are a small business who help other SMBs, the need of using a platform is not very appealing. Typically these platforms are great to manage scale campaigns. If you’re in a big team dealing with lots of assets and campaigns, you will benefit from a third party tool, as they allow for automate processes.

Too much headache

Any software goes through multiple versions until it reaches a stable point, where developers have added most of the features. However, that can be an arduous process if you’re an early-adopter. It can be very frustrating to have to deal with constant changes in the functionalities, features and even interface, so choosing a native tool tends to be a less changing experience.

In summary

Even though we do not use third party tools, we are in no way against them. They serve a purpose in the industry as well as pushing the envelope. As a result, traditional tools may end up incorporating new features that they have not thought of having in the beginning. So as marketers, we have many more options now than we used to and that is always positive.

Thanks for reading!