How CMOs Can Build the Foundation for an Effective Marketing Technology Stack

The marketing technology stack has evolved to become a critical component of any effective marketing strategy. Technology fosters the process of acquiring customers, nurturing these customers, and driving growth. Artificial intelligence (AI), in particular, will transform the marketing landscape, giving CMOs new opportunities to leverage technology to drive profitable growth.

Chief marketing officers who are in charge of leading their entire organization toward digital innovation won’t get there without the right technology to enable the journey. As a digital marketing executive search firm, we recognize it’s up to the CMO to manage the martech performance and how it can be best positioned to drive results.

CMOs and marketing executives must be in-tune and involved in technology-related initiatives. This doesn’t mean that the CMO has to manage and control every detail of the stack. However, technology is becoming an integral part of driving marketing success, so you must know enough about it to develop the overall strategy, measure performance, and build the right team that’s in charge of executing the strategy and deploying AI-powered technology.

In order to optimize the customer experience, drive marketing forward and reach business goals, CMOs need to keep pace with the components of their marketing technology stack. They must recognize how their martech and leadership drives true business growth and how to manage their organizations to evolve in the world of AI.

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As marketing technologist recruiters, we understand it can be difficult for CMOs who haven’t grown up in the marketing technology world to feel fully equipped to engage with the enterprise martech stack and lead their team toward digital innovation.

But don’t worry, we’ve got everything you need to keep you covered. In order to maximize the impact of AI and your marketing technology stack, make sure that you have these core principles in line to successfully transform your business.

Adequate MarTech and AI Knowledge

Although CMOs and senior marketing executives don’t have to be involved in every element of the stack, they must be knowledgeable enough about it to drive strategy. As digital marketing executive search recruiters, we know that a CMO who lacks an understanding of core martech capabilities blindly leads a team, causing them to miss important objectives.

As a CMO, you must know enough to build the strategy, set the parameters of marketing objectives, and have the ability to evaluate when a decision is a good one. Not only do you need to be insightful enough to build the strategy and ensure your team is meeting goals, but you must also be equipped to have executive-level conversations with stakeholders like the CIO, who will have a tremendous impact on the success of your martech initiatives.

It’s important for leaders to continuously learn and educate themselves to stay sharp and abreast of trends. You must become accustomed to new and disruptive technology, and the possibilities it brings to your organization. Machine learning, deep learning, and AI are all becoming technologies you should be implementing into your martech stack.

The rise in AI-fuelled marketing takes mundane, time-consuming tasks off marketers’ hands; instead delegating them to machines. This allows marketers to focus their efforts on strategic thinking and creativity. AI gives CMOs access to data like never before. Therefore, leaders must know how to harness the power of AI and massive amounts of data to better understand their customers. Without improving interactions and meeting consumers’ needs and desires, organizations risk losing leads to competitors.

Educate yourself by following online courses, webinars and conferences. By keeping up with the latest developments in the marketing landscape, best practices, and getting your hands in every new trend as much as you can, you are able to better guide your team toward meeting goals. Additionally, you can share your knowledge with other senior executives. This further strengthens the entire company to reach business goals and proves to other C-suite executives like the CEO and CFO that marketing plays a big role in driving ROI.

Technology Performance

It’s your responsibility as the CMO to oversee the performance of the martech stack and prioritize how each individual tool or product is performing.

Are your AI-based tools driving maximum results? Marketers must deliver the right message, to the right audience, at the right time – AI allows you to create more personalized campaigns and generate qualified leads quicker. With the insights AI and machine learning provide, marketers are able to make better decisions and focus on the unique needs of their customer. Understanding how the AI tools you employ not only process enormous amounts of data but enhance your current marketing efforts is key.

Each fragment of your martech stack should be assessed regularly against success metrics. Whether you delegate a team in your department to evaluate how each piece is contributing to measurable growth or you employ IT to do so, it’s critical to monitor how your tools are driving value to your overall goals and objectives.

Prioritizing and measuring the effectiveness of your stack ensures you aren’t wasting resources on technology that isn’t bringing in ROI. Neglecting to assess the performance of your technology will cause your stack to become costly and excessive.

Buy-In from the C-Suite

Anything that happens from a technology perspective as it relates to marketing is going to need buy-in from the CIO. Why? Because it’s critical that the person you engage with concerning the technology needed for change understands how to align it with marketing and overall business goals.

In order to get alignment from key stakeholders across cross-functional areas for your marketing stack to be effective, you must build a strong business case for change that demonstrates room for growth and opportunities.

By communicating with other C-suite leaders so that you share a common set of business goals, establish accountability, and educate on the importance of AI, you are able to drive a connected customer journey and get the most out of your martech stack.

An Armed Organizational Structure

In order for your martech stack to be launched into full throttle, you must have the right team in place. This means setting up an organizational structure with the right roles and finding the right people that are qualified for those positions. More importantly, your team must be equipped to implement AI technology in a meaningful way.

AI technology requires a new way of working, new skills and a new mindset; but still needs human support and monitoring to drive valuable results. In order to leverage data and AI concepts to improve the customer journey, marketers need to be able to make sense of them.

By utilizing AI and saving time, your team is able to allocate their focus on strategic work. This leads to greater innovation and digital transformation. However, a CMO who isn’t digitally-adept cannot identify the right skillsets to bring onboard to leverage AI. Without the right people to support the implementation and execution of your strategy, and take on AI, your marketing transformation will lose momentum in growth.

It’s up to you as the CMO to define the martech strategy and objectives, and build a team to implement AI technologies. Finding the right talent allows you to drive greater ROI from your stack, optimize productivity, and increase speed to market.

Conclusion

It is well past time for CMOs to be well versed in marketing technology and digitally-inclined to drive growth. The spend on martech across all enterprises will increasingly grow alongside AI, and CMOs must be the one to advocate for it. Your marketing technology stack is the force that drives transformation across your marketing and the entire organization. It’s what gives you the opportunity to push change and establish a competitive edge.

AI has come a long way and will only continue to intensify. It will continue to give marketers incredible insights and predictions that weren’t possible before. But no amount of innovative technology can reach its full potential without the proper human support. Today’s CMO needs to ensure their teams have the acquired skills that allow them to leverage AI. With the right team and strategy in place, you’ll be amazed at how technology contributes to marketing success.

Wherever you choose to implement AI, it’s critical to recognize how this type of technology is reshaping marketing as we know it. Those who fail to accept and embrace the AI evolution will struggle to stay relevant.

Any digital marketing executive search firm knows that while it’s challenging to become a CMO, it’s exponentially harder to stay a CMO. Being a successful leader requires lifelong learning, evolving, and pushing yourself to grow.

How are you doing as a CMO in propelling your organization toward digital transformation?

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