Let’s be honest: picking a B2B go-to-market (GTM) software tool isn’t exciting. It’s overwhelming. The stakes are high, the options are endless, and most vendors sound like they’re promising a magic trick. If you’re a marketing, product, or growth lead at a SaaS or B2B company, you need answers—not buzzwords.
Here’s how to cut through the hype, figure out what actually matters, and decide if something like Heap is the right fit for your GTM stack.
Why GTM Software Matters—But Only If It Solves Real Problems
Before we get into features, let’s get one thing straight: GTM tools don’t magically fix broken strategies or bad products. What they can do is help you:
- Understand which parts of your funnel are working (and which are black holes)
- Uncover what users actually do, not just what they say
- Find and fix leaks in your onboarding or sales process
- Attribute revenue to real actions, not just guesses
If a tool can’t do these basics, skip it—no matter how shiny the UI is.
1. Start With What’s Broken (Not With Features)
Most teams shop for GTM software backwards. They get wowed by demo dashboards, then try to retrofit the tool to their needs. That’s a recipe for shelfware.
Do this instead:
- List your top 2-3 GTM headaches. Maybe it’s “We don’t know why trial users vanish,” or “Sales blames Marketing, Marketing blames Product.”
- Define what “better” looks like. Do you want faster answers? Fewer meetings? More closed deals?
You’re not looking for the “best tool.” You’re looking for the best fit for the problems you actually have.
Pro tip: If a vendor can’t show you how their product solves your specific problems in a pilot or trial, move on.
2. Data Collection: Automatic > Manual
This is the big one. Most B2B GTM tools still expect you to plan and tag every single event you want to track. That means endless meetings with engineering and a lot of “We forgot to tag that button six months ago.”
Here’s what matters:
- Automatic event capture: Does the tool automatically collect everything users do (clicks, pageviews, form submissions), or do you have to define it all upfront?
- Retroactive tracking: Can you ask new questions of past data, or are you out of luck if you didn’t set it up ahead of time?
- Minimal engineering dependency: Can a marketer or PM set it up, or do you need a developer every time you want to tweak something?
Heap stands out here because it automatically captures all user interactions from day one. That means you get a full historical record, even if you didn’t know what you’d want to analyze later. Some other tools make you define every event manually—good luck keeping up with a fast-moving product.
What to ignore: Fancy event visualization features are useless if you’re missing half your data.
3. Funnel Analysis: Fast, Flexible, and Actually Understandable
You want to see where users drop off. Not just at signup, but at every step—demo requests, onboarding, expansion, whatever matters to your business.
Look for:
- Point-and-click funnel building: Can non-technical folks build funnels without SQL?
- Cohort and segment analysis: Can you break down funnels by customer type, plan, or channel?
- Speed: How fast can you go from “I have a question” to “Here’s the answer”?
Heap lets you build funnels and segment them without writing code. You can see, for example, if first-time buyers from LinkedIn drop off at onboarding step 2, while referred leads don’t. That’s the level of detail you need to actually fix things.
What doesn’t work: Tools that make funnel analysis a week-long project involving data analysts. If you have to file a Jira ticket for every question, you’ll stop asking.
4. Integrations: Will It Play Nice With Your Stack?
Most B2B teams already use a pile of tools—CRM, email, analytics, maybe a CDP. Your GTM tool should connect to these without a headache.
- Native integrations: Does it connect directly to Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketo, or whatever you use?
- Reverse ETL and API access: Can you pipe data in and out, or are you stuck with a silo?
- Data ownership: Can you export your data easily, or are you locked in?
Heap offers a bunch of native integrations and lets you export your data, so you’re not trapped if you want to move or combine tools later. Some competitors make exporting a pain (surprise, they want you to stick around forever).
Pro tip: Always ask for a live integration demo with your actual stack. “Oh, we support that” doesn’t mean it works well.
5. User Identity: Can You Track Real People, Not Just Clicks?
It’s one thing to collect data. It’s another to tie actions to actual users—especially as they move from anonymous visitor to signed-up user to paying customer.
Questions to ask:
- Identity resolution: Does the tool stitch together anonymous and known user journeys?
- Account-level insights: In B2B, can you roll up activity by company, not just by individual?
- Multi-touch attribution: Can you see all the touchpoints that led up to a sale, or just the last one?
Heap nails user identity. It tracks users across devices (even before they log in), and can aggregate activity at the account level for B2B. That means you get a real picture of how buying committees actually behave—not just single users.
What to ignore: Tools that only show you “sessions” or anonymous events. Those are fine for blogs, useless for B2B sales.
6. Reporting: Can Normal Humans Use It (and Trust It)?
If you need to train your team for weeks just to pull a report, something’s wrong. Good GTM tools make it simple to:
- Build and share dashboards with zero code
- Set up alerts when key metrics change
- Drill down from high-level trends to actual user actions
Heap’s UI is straightforward. You can save and share dashboards, set up custom alerts, and, crucially, trust that what you’re seeing is accurate—because it’s based on the full data set, not just sampled data.
Red flag: If the data in your GTM tool never seems to match what’s in your CRM or product database, run.
7. Support, Pricing, and “Gotchas”
A few practical things people forget to check:
- Support: Is there real support, or just a chatbot? Can you talk to someone who knows what they’re doing?
- Transparent pricing: Are there hidden fees for “premium” features? How does pricing scale as your company grows?
- Implementation: How long does it really take to get up and running? (Ask for real customer stories, not just claims.)
Heap is generally known for responsive support and fair, usage-based pricing. But don’t take anyone’s word for it—ask for references, and talk to a current customer if you can.
And watch out for tools that seem cheap upfront but nickel-and-dime you as you add users or events.
What About AI and Predictive Features? Don’t Get Distracted
Vendors love to tout “AI-powered insights” and “predictive analytics.” Here’s the truth: most of these features are either black boxes or just rebranded statistics.
Unless you already have the basics dialed in—reliable data, clear funnels, actionable dashboards—AI won’t save you. Get the fundamentals right first.
The Honest Take: Where Heap Fits (and Where It Doesn’t)
If you want a GTM analytics tool that:
- Captures everything automatically, so you’re not relying on perfect planning
- Lets non-technical folks answer their own questions, fast
- Integrates well with the rest of your stack
- Handles user identity and B2B use cases out of the box
…then Heap is a strong choice. It’s not the only tool that does some of these things, but it’s rare to find all of them together.
Where Heap won’t help: - If you need deep product analytics for mobile apps (it’s better for web and SaaS) - If you want a “do-it-all” marketing automation platform (Heap is analytics-first, not an email tool) - If you expect a tool to solve unclear strategies or bad data elsewhere
Keep It Simple, Test Fast, Iterate
Don’t buy a GTM tool because a competitor uses it or because the sales deck is slick. Make a list of your real, painful problems. Test the tool on those—quickly. If it solves them, great. If not, move on.
Pick tools that help you learn faster and take action sooner. Everything else is just noise.