The revolution in customer relationship marketing (CRM) continues with an exponential increase in the points of data available to leverage for marketing. Data is more robust, measurement tools are better, and channel capabilities are improving — not only on their own, but also in their ability to orchestrate marketing across channels. All of this is great for the industry, and it is driving investment in new marketing stacks.
When I talk about a marketing stack here, I don’t mean that a company is buying everything from a single martech software provider. What I mean is that companies are updating what tools they have available to them — sometimes all at once, sometimes in pieces. Lately, I have been seeing more “all-new” stacks being architected, often with a main marketing cloud at the center but supported by best-of-breed campaign management platforms, analytics and BI tools, data hygiene tools and content management systems.
What I also observe is that each toolset usually has its own team of specialists who utilize and manage the tools. That makes sense; specialists know the tools well. But I often find that specialists who have a thorough knowledge of their own tools don’t always understand how to use complementary tools. Or the specialist doesn’t really understand the use case. The result is often a tech stack that either doesn’t meet the needs originally stated, or those needs are met, but on a much longer timeline.
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About The Author
Jose Cebrian is Vice President and General Manager of Email and Mobile Messaging for Merkle. He came to Merkle after spending nine years at Acxiom, where he grew to Managing Director, Global Client Services for Digital Impact, Acxiom’s email and SMS division. Jose led a global team responsible for optimizing interactive direct marketing campaigns across the web, email, and mobile.