Marketing technology has exploded—thousands of tools addressing advertising, content, analytics, personalization, and more. Building an effective martech stack means making strategic choices about platforms, integration, and capability. Done well, martech enables effective customer engagement; done poorly, it creates complexity without value.
This guide provides a framework for marketing technology strategy, addressing stack architecture, platform selection, and optimization.
Understanding the Martech Landscape
The Martech Explosion
The marketing technology landscape includes thousands of solutions:
Advertising technology: Programmatic, social, search advertising.
Content and experience: CMS, DAM, personalization.
Social and relationships: Social management, influencer, advocacy.
Commerce and sales: E-commerce, sales enablement.
Data: Analytics, CDP, data management.
Management: Budgeting, collaboration, talent.
Common Challenges
Organizations struggle with martech:
Proliferation: Too many tools; duplication and overlap.
Integration: Tools don't work together.
Utilization: Features paid for but unused.
Ownership: Unclear who owns and manages.
Cost: Spending growing without proportional value.
Complexity: Stack too complex to manage effectively.
Martech Stack Framework
Stack Architecture Principles
How to think about martech architecture:
Hub-and-spoke: Core platforms with integrated specialized tools.
Data foundation: Customer data platform or equivalent at center.
Integration-first: Choose tools that integrate well.
Consolidation bias: Fewer, better-integrated tools.
Capability-driven: Stack based on capability needs, not vendor push.
Core Stack Categories
Essential martech components:
Marketing automation/email:
- Campaign management
- Lead nurturing
- Email delivery
- Journey orchestration
Content management:
- Web content
- Asset management
- Content creation
Customer data and analytics:
- Customer data platform
- Marketing analytics
- Attribution
Advertising/demand generation:
- Paid media management
- Programmatic
- Social advertising
Experience/personalization:
- Testing and optimization
- Personalization
- Recommendations
Stack Integration
Connecting the pieces:
Integration approaches:
- Native integrations
- iPaaS connectors
- Custom integration
- Data warehouse-based
Data flow:
- Customer data synchronization
- Campaign data
- Attribution data
- Analytics data
Customer identity:
- Consistent identity across tools
- CDP as identity layer
Platform Selection
Selection Approach
Choosing marketing platforms:
Requirements first: Define capability needs before evaluating.
Ecosystem consideration: Fit with existing platforms.
Integration capability: How well does it connect?
Total cost of ownership: Full cost including integration and operation.
Vendor trajectory: Where is vendor going?
Suite vs. Best-of-Breed
Platform strategy choices:
Suite approach (HubSpot, Salesforce, Adobe):
- Integrated by design
- Simpler management
- Vendor dependency
- May not be best in each category
Best-of-breed:
- Best tool for each need
- Integration complexity
- Management complexity
- Flexibility
Hybrid (most common):
- Core platforms from suites
- Specialized tools where needed
- Selective best-of-breed
Major Platform Options
Key martech platforms:
Enterprise marketing clouds: Adobe Experience Cloud, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Oracle Marketing.
Mid-market automation: HubSpot, Marketo, Pardot.
CDP: Segment, mParticle, Adobe CDP, Salesforce CDP.
Specialized tools: Thousands of category-specific options.
Implementation and Optimization
Implementation Approach
Building the stack:
Current state assessment: What exists today?
Capability gap analysis: What's missing?
Stack design: Target architecture.
Implementation roadmap: Sequence of deployment.
Integration: Connecting components.
Optimization
Getting more from martech:
Utilization analysis: Are features being used?
Rationalization: Eliminate redundant tools.
Feature adoption: Adopt unused capabilities.
Integration improvement: Better data flow.
Process optimization: Better workflows.
Governance
Managing martech:
Ownership: Clear ownership of each tool.
Budget management: Consolidated martech budget.
Vendor management: Relationship and contract management.
Review cadence: Regular stack review.
Key Takeaways
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Strategy before shopping: Define capability needs before selecting platforms.
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Integration is critical: Connected stack delivers more value than isolated tools.
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Customer data is foundational: CDP or equivalent enables personalization across channels.
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Consolidation where sensible: Fewer, integrated tools often better than proliferation.
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Ongoing optimization required: Stack requires continuous management and optimization.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many martech tools should we have? Fewer than most organizations have. Focus on core capabilities; integrate tightly.
Suite or best-of-breed? Often hybrid. Core suite for integration benefits; selective best-of-breed where differentiated capability justifies complexity.
How do we measure martech ROI? Difficult but important. Feature utilization, campaign performance, efficiency gains, and marketing outcomes.
What about martech vendor consolidation? Ongoing M&A in martech. Consider vendor trajectory. Plan for potential changes.
How do we govern martech procurement? Centralized or federated with governance. Prevent shadow martech. Standard evaluation process.
What skills do we need for martech? Marketing operations, platform administration, data/analytics, and integration capability.