6 under-the-radar martech tools to make your workday easier in 2026 | MarTech

Marketers don’t have to rely solely on the big martech stack. Specialized tools with one solution can deliver real profits by 2026. The tools below may not be household names, but they are all designed to address a specific marketing challenge.

Here are six under-the-radar solutions that could help you in 2026 – and no, I’m not being compensated for mentioning them. As someone who works with brands across industries, I’ve found these tools extremely useful.

Best for: Manage multiple data sources or spend $500,000+ on campaigns. Most marketers discover data problems in the worst way: when leadership looks at a dashboard and says, “That can’t be right.” By then, the damage has already been done as campaigns targeted the wrong audiences, budgets were misallocated, and compliance issues slipped through the cracks.

iceDQ is a unified data testing, monitoring and AI-powered observability platform that catches errors before they reach production. It’s quality assurance for your data pipelines, with the same rigor that software teams use for code, applied to the data that drives your marketing decisions.

Why it matters in 2026: As marketers integrate more data sources (CDPs, advertising platforms, CRMs, warehouses), complexity creates points of failure. One company found that 30% of their advertising budget was targeting customers who had already converted simply because the databases were not syncing properly. Poor data quality costs US companies $3.1 trillion annually.

How it works: Unlike tools that only recover data after it is in production, IceDQ tests throughout the entire lifecycle: development > QA > production. It reconciles data between systems, validates transformations and uses AI to detect anomalies. For marketing leaders, this means trust your reporting, protect compliance (verify opt-in/opt-out status), prevent revenue leakage, and spend less time troubleshooting data issues.

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2. Addtowallet: Easier access to mobile loyalty without the app

Addtowallet places loyalty cards, discount coupons, punch cards and membership cards directly into Apple and Google Wallets. Building a mobile app to meet these needs can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Best for: Member companies, retail chains and service providers with returning customers.

Why it matters in 2026: You can engage your customers on their mobile phones without having to rely on email or SMS. Once a pass is saved, you can send push notifications to lock screens, update offers in real time, and track redemptions, without fighting for attention in busy inboxes.

Effective usage scenarios:

• Spa and wellness: Rebook appointment reminders with one tap.
• American Automobile Association: Dynamic digital membership cards and coupons (79% redemption increase).
• Wine clubs: Tasting invitations that activate when members are near the tasting room.
• Breweries: Mug club memberships with rotating tap lists and reminders when favorite styles are tapped for the first time.
• Retail: QR codes on direct mail that load discount passes instantly with built-in reminders so they’re used before they expire.

This no-code platform scales from 1,000 to 10 million users. It works across email, SMS, QR codes and websites and integrates seamlessly with Salesforce Marketing Cloud and more. It is a strong addition to any retention or loyalty campaign.

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3. Scrunch: Draw up a plan and know what AI says about your brand

Best for: Brands that make informed purchases and consumers who engage in research and information. When customers ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini about your category, does your brand appear? Scrunch monitors how AI engines see, quote, and rank your brand.

Why it matters in 2026: AI-powered search transforms discovery. If you’re invisible to LLMs, you’ll miss out on potential clients who never reach traditional search results.

Common usage scenarios:

• Track brand mentions versus competitors on AI platforms.
• Keep an eye on what content AI quotes (or ignores).
• Identify when AI bots can’t crawl your site.
• Optimize content to increase AI visibility.

4. Exchange Solutions: Modern Loyalty Starts Before Login

Best for: Retailers and e-commerce brands looking to increase loyalty and profitable conversions without overhauling their tech stack. Many loyalty programs are only activated after you sign up. ES Engage changes that. It identifies every visitor, known and unknown, and delivers real-time, margin-conscious offers that increase average order volume (AOV) from loyal members and increase non-loyalty spend.

Why it matters in 2026: Loyalty now starts during the session. Shoppers exposed to ES Engage offers are twice as likely to return to the site, place 1.6 times more orders, and spend 1.9 times more. The implementation is lightweight, tag-based and will be live within weeks.

Common usage scenarios:

• Convert new visitors with real-time, margin-conscious offers.
• Reinforce the loyalty value before you log in.
• Shape demand with 1:1 offers that move obsolete inventory before clearance.
• Distribute the AOV among members and non-members.

5. Codes needed: AI that understands why people buy

Best for: Dive in and explore how consumers think about a product category and how they view a brand. Need Codes combines behavioral science with AI-powered analytics to uncover the deeper motivations that shape consumer decisions. Need Codes allows marketers to analyze the emotional triggers and decision patterns that influence purchasing behavior.

Why it matters in 2026: Frameworks and trained agents are crucial to unlocking the power of AI. The Need Codes framework diagnoses psychological motivators and the why behind the numbers, helping brands design messages and products that align with how people actually think and choose, not just how they behave.

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Best for: Brands spend medium to large budgets annually on media that need to optimize allocation across channels. LiftLab unifies MMM with rapid experiment design and match-market testing to help marketers quantify incrementality and optimize channel budgets.

Why it matters in 2026: Traditional MMM platforms innovate slowly and often deliver insights that feel like common knowledge. With LiftLab’s dynamic tracking and updates, you can analyze lower-level tactics like Instagram Reels so you know what’s driving incrementality and when each channel reaches saturation. This means you can start controlling how much to spend and when to stop, giving you more control over growth and profitability.

Common usage scenarios:

• Rebalance funnel investments based on true incrementality.
• Run what-if scenarios before shifting budgets.
• Quantify both short-term performance and long-term brand impact.

A challenge for agencies and advisors

I’ve increasingly found that one of the biggest added values ​​I can bring to my clients is helping them move faster with an agile tech stack. This allows them to save money and resources on underutilized technology and reallocate them to technology options that truly help them solve business and marketing challenges.

If you are an agency owner or strategic advisor, take this challenge to heart. Your breadth of experience allows you to understand the difference between technology that increases cost and complexity and technology that makes marketing campaigns stronger.