Marketers don’t need to rely only on the big-name martech stack. Specialized single-solution tools can deliver real wins in 2026. The tools below may not be household names, but each is designed to address a specific marketing challenge.
Here are six under-the-radar solutions that can help you in 2026 — and no, I’m not getting compensated for mentioning them. As someone who works with brands across verticals, I’ve found these tools extremely useful.
Best for: Managing multiple data sources or spending $500,000+ on campaigns. Most marketers discover data problems the worst way: when leadership looks at a dashboard and says, “That can’t be right.” By then, the damage is done because campaigns targeted the wrong audiences, budgets were misallocated and compliance issues slipped through.
iceDQ is a unified platform for data testing, monitoring and AI-powered observability that catches errors before they reach production. It’s quality assurance for your data pipelines, with the same rigor software teams use for code, applied to the data driving your marketing decisions.
Why it matters in 2026: As marketers integrate more data sources (CDPs, ad platforms, CRMs, warehouses), complexity creates failure points. One company discovered 30% of their ad budget targeted customers who’d already converted, simply because databases weren’t syncing properly. Poor data quality costs U.S. companies $3.1 trillion annually.
How it works: Unlike tools that only fix data after it’s in production, iceDQ tests throughout the entire lifecycle: development > QA > production. It reconciles data across 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 firefighting data issues.
Dig deeper: Big players vs. niche specialists: Choosing your martech vendors
2. Addtowallet: Easier access to mobile loyalty without the app
Addtowallet puts loyalty cards, coupons, punch cards and membership passes directly into Apple and Google Wallets. Building a mobile app to address these needs can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Best for: Membership businesses, retail chains and service providers with recurring customers.
Why it matters in 2026: You can engage your customers on their mobile phones without relying 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 use cases:
- Spa and wellness: Appointment reminders with one-tap rebooking.
- American Automobile Association: Dynamic digital membership cards and coupons (79% redemption lift).
- Wine clubs: Tasting invites that trigger when members are near the tasting room.
- Breweries: Mug club memberships with rotating tap lists and reminders when favorite styles are first tapped.
- Retail: QR codes on direct mail that instantly load discount passes with built-in reminders, ensuring they are used before expiration.
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’s a strong addition to any retention or loyalty campaign.
Dig deeper: An outcome-driven framework for core martech selection
3. Scrunch: Build a plan and know what AI says about your brand
Best for: Brands with considered purchases and consumers engaging in research and upper-funnel education. When customers ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini about your category, does your brand show up? Scrunch monitors how AI engines see, cite and rank your brand.
Why it matters in 2026: AI-powered search is reshaping discovery. If you’re invisible to LLMs, you’re missing out on prospects who never reach traditional search.
Common use cases:
- Track brand mentions versus competitors across AI platforms.
- Monitor which content AI cites (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 ecommerce brands looking to grow loyalty and profitable conversions without overhauling their tech stack. Many loyalty programs only activate after sign-in. ES Engage changes that. It identifies every visitor, known and unknown, delivering real-time, margin-aware offers that stretch loyal members’ average order volume (AOV) and lift non-loyalty spend.
Why it matters in 2026: Loyalty now begins in-session. Shoppers exposed to ES Engage offers return to the site twice more often, place 1.6 times more orders and spend 1.9 times more. Implementation is lightweight, tag-based and live in weeks.
Common use cases:
- Convert first-time visitors with real-time, margin-aware offers.
- Strengthen loyalty value before login.
- Shape demand with 1:1 offers that move aging inventory ahead of clearance.
- Stretch AOV among members and non-members.
5. Need Codes: AI that understands why people buy
Best for: Diving in and exploring how consumers think about a product category and how they view a brand. Need Codes combines behavioral science with AI-supported analysis to uncover the deeper motivations shaping consumer decisions. With Need Codes, marketers can analyze the emotional triggers and decision patterns that influence purchase behavior.
Why it matters in 2026: Frameworks and trained agents are crucial for unlocking the power of AI. The Need Codes framework diagnoses psychological motivators and the why behind the numbers, helping brands design messaging and products that align with how people actually think and choose, not just how they behave.
Dig deeper: Why pilots, not RFPs, define the future of martech selection
Best for: Brands spending 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 are slow to refresh and often deliver insights that feel like common knowledge. LiftLab’s dynamic tracking and updates help you analyze lower-level tactics, such as Instagram Reels, so you know what drives incrementality and when each channel hits saturation. This means you can start controlling both how much to spend and when to stop, giving you more control over growth and profitability.
Common use cases:
- Rebalance funnel investments based on real incrementality.
- Run what-if scenarios before shifting budgets.
- Quantify both short-term performance and long-term brand effects.
A challenge for agencies and consultants
I’ve increasingly found that one of the biggest value-adds I can provide my clients is helping them move faster with an agile tech stack. This allows them to save money and resources on underused technology and reallocate them to technology options that truly help them solve business and marketing challenges.
If you’re an agency owner or strategic consultant, take this challenge to heart. Your breadth of experience puts you in a position to understand the difference between tech that adds cost and complexity and tech that makes marketing campaigns stronger.
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Contributing authors are invited to create content for MarTech and are chosen for their expertise and contribution to the martech community. Our contributors work under the oversight of the editorial staff and contributions are checked for quality and relevance to our readers. MarTech is owned by Semrush. Contributor was not asked to make any direct or indirect mentions of Semrush. The opinions they express are their own.
