So you’ve inherited a martech stack – what now? 

You’ve got the chance to sit down and audit your martech stack. Maybe you’re starting a new position or maybe you’ve finally got the headspace and time to dedicate to this project. Either way it’s a bit like drinking from a fire hose. There’s a lot of information and this dream marketing role might not have come with a dream martech stack. 

We’re sitting down with Gemma Anderson, Marketing and Creative Services Direction at H^CK Digital, to get insight into her experience and advice on how to tackle the issue head on. 

Let’s start with you, Gemma. Tell us what you are passionate about in the marketing industry and how your career has been shaped alongside growing martech. 

When I look back at my career, it’s fascinating to reflect upon the shifts that have happened in the digital marketing domain. Early days it really did feel like the wild wild west! My days were once spent dreaming up immersive multimedia websites, branded online games and a constant stream of Facebook competitions. These days, disruptive digital activations need to be balanced with attribution, automation and conversion.  

Creativity is what keeps me passionate about marketing, and the exploding possibilities of technology open up so many opportunities for clever marketing.  

It’s unlikely that you will ever get to build a stack from scratch. What does it feel like inheriting someone else’s decisions and technology purchases? 

It’s not always a bad thing. Deployments of cornerstone technology can take years of advocacy and absorb considerable mental focus for any marketing leader. To be able to focus your efforts on accelerating value realisation, building on great infrastructure and delivering clever executions is the ideal position to be in - that’s living the dream!  

If you have inherited a non-functioning stack, then unfortunately it can put your marketing maturity back years or at a minimum be very limiting.  

Leaders often have to make an assessment if they’re willing to exhaust political capital and actual capital on pushing for a replatform or if they’re better off simply making do with what they have. It’s frustrating, but we all have to operate within constraints.  

What tips do you have for someone staring down the barrel of unwieldy data flow? Any red flags that you look for in the audit process? 

Every license needs to be pulling its weight in delivering value, and that value has to outweigh the cost. The primary question of any audit is “if I kill this, what will fall apart?” and if no one knows or it doesn’t stack up, well that’s the ultimate red flag.  I love a quick win, and every stack has a few zombies. Audits often reveal a lot of unrealised potential but there has to be a time-efficient path to value realisation. You can’t keep paying for the promise of potential. Very quickly you need to be able to assess if the vendor is no longer fit-for-purpose or if the issues are related to enablement, integration or strategy. It’s easy to be overwhelmed but just take it one step at a time.  

So you’re starting to see areas for improvement – what are the first things you focus on? 

Maximising impact. You need to keep the ‘so what’ top of mind. You can sink a lot of time reconfiguring a solution only for it to not actually make a meaningful impact. Technical specialists can get very fixated on chasing best practice, and that’s an important pursuit but that doesn’t necessarily equate to impact.  

I’m a fan of the 1:2:3 model - tackle one big item, two medium and three quick wins. Big items will always take longer than you anticipate, so you need to commence as soon as possible. But you equally need the quick wins help motivate teams by seeing progress and can also help showcase efforts to stakeholders.  

What problems do you expect to run into when you’re implementing change? 

It really depends upon the history of the organisation. Is there change fatigue? Has there been a history of costly implementations with questionable success rates? What are the strategic priorities for the executive? A lot of hurdles can fall away if there is a burning platform for change. If the appetite for change isn’t there, it will be a lot more challenging. What I can promise, is that any marketer can expect to have to navigate IT teams, which can be complex and political. Get to know your technology counterparts.  

Is it possible to future-proof your martech stack? How can we anticipate the next big thing and make sure that the stack (and the team) will cope? 

Firstly, if you’re not talking to your vendors about their roadmap then that needs to change. You need to know what their vision for their product is, and where they’re investing their energy. Are they meeting their delivery deadlines? Are they investing in product innovation? Are they keeping up with the competition? 

Too many organisations are being held hostage by technology that isn’t fit for purpose or lagging in innovation because of the sunk costs and fear of change. What I’d love to see is the industry adopt a mindset that solutions are designed to be ejected and replaced with a regular frequency. Change should be the norm! I’ve seen a lot of irrational loyalty to vendors in our space that is rarely rewarded. We need to focus our energies on building adaptable teams, who are obsessed with strategy not the tech. The best futureproofing is by building teams who can implement new technology efficiently - if implementation is a slow and costly burden, then you’re always going to be stuck. The same mentality applies to adopting new features from existing vendors.  

Keen to know more? Watch now ADMA’s free webinar, “Martech for the Modern Marketer – Insider Secrets: How Leaders Use Technology to Drive Results” where we plunged into the heart of marketing innovation and uncovered secrets to achieving success through the master of martech.