A typical CMO writes most martech post-mortems from their own perspective. I’ve sat in those rooms for 30 years and the story rarely changes.
The platform under-produced results, the ROI was never shown, or the seller oversold the demo. The tools take the blame, but the stack never gets around to responding. This time I’ll let him answer.
Imagine a CMO in a room with his martech stack, faced with 18 months of spending, flat results, and a CFO asking what the money bought. He stopped being patient. The stack, for once, responds.
The CMO explains that he invested in the martech stack to help his team move faster. He needed better segmentation, clearer data, and the personalization engine his team required for two budget cycles.
Yet, 18 months later, the campaign’s velocity is stable. Additionally, its two reporting tools show different numbers for the same metric. What exactly is he paying for?
The stack responds that it is paying for three tools that do overlapping work. For example, Customer Data Platform (CDP) and Marketing Automation Platform (MAP) both create audiences. They draw from the same slice of customer data and define segments differently.
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The cost of ongoing maintenance
The OCM believes that integrations are responsible for managing overlap between tools. But the stack reveals that API updates have broken integrations. This required ongoing engineering resources.
That cost hasn’t been on the CMO’s radar. Historically, it has only tracked tool subscriptions. But it didn’t consider the cost of keeping the stack running as a connected system because its accounting structure isn’t built to handle it.
The difference between familiarity and ability
While the CMO believes his team has received sufficient training on each component, the stack clarifies what actually happened. He explains that his team learned the stack buttons, which fostered familiarity. A customer success representative led his team in creating a segment, configuring an identity rule, and exporting to a channel.
But the team still lacks skills. Capability involves knowing which segment to build for the campaign you will run in the next quarter and why exports to your MAP and your advertising platform need different structures.
The CMO paid for the familiarity and presumed capability that would come with it. But the first 60 days after the stack went live set the ceiling. No one incorporated the work into the team’s rhythm.
The inevitable performance drift
The CMO wants to know why the martech stack’s performance has deteriorated. The stack explains that it was configured for the existing business at launch, but the business has evolved since then. Now the company has new channels, volumes and expectations.
The stack continuously reports uptime, error rates, and throughput. Yet no one acts on the data. This inaction causes stack drift over time, which the CMO only notices when it becomes expensive to fix.
Any lack of ownership
Finally, the CMO asks about a certain martech tool in the stack. Few team members use it and finance continues to report it. The stack explains that the team that originally needed it was reorganized 18 months ago, but the subscription automatically renewed.
The organization has an elaborate procurement process involving evaluation committees, scorecards, business cases and approval chains. But there is no established process for removing a tool from the stack. The tools remain by default, so the stack continues to grow.
The person who initially selected the stack changed roles a year ago. The stack now has no owner.
It works and eats budget, but it’s no one’s job to decide whether the stack still earns its place. Instead, the CMO rules by default. Whoever buys the instrument is its owner and, when he leaves, no one takes ownership of it.
ROI logs out
The CMO says that in 18 months the stack has never provided a single number to take to its CFO. The stack reports activity but not capacity. All she has to do is make seven-figure renewal calls based on anecdotes and who complains the loudest.
The stack explains that someone should have linked its output to business results. But the team never assigned that responsibility.
Translating activity into results requires human judgment. Yet that person does not exist in the organizational chart. The stack reports what it can measure and the CMO reads what it can get.
Neither the CMO nor the martech stack is the bad guy. The CMO bought good tools for real reasons and the stack did more or less what it was configured to do. The organization still needs a person who manages the stack as a system, evaluates whether each tool still earns its place, maintains integrations, and connects output to business outcomes.
This role requires staff, a budget line, and the authority to create a tool supported by a vice president. A reasonable benchmark is an operational person for three or four major platforms, with a corresponding investment in training. Many organizations won’t fund it.
Stop checking tools and check the gap between those who buy them and those who use them. Give someone the mandate, budget, and authority to manage the stack. Do this and the next time your CFO asks you how much the stack is worth, you’ll have an answer that isn’t a shrug and a renewal invoice.
