Martech Report Shows Performance Gains Differ by Stack Category

A report from the CMO Council and MartechTribe analyzed 988 martech stacks across seven industries and 49 categories. It compared the breadth of technology capabilities and the maturity of people and processes using them. Outperformers were defined as the top 30 percent in revenue per employee within each industry. Companies with higher revenue per employee did not consistently have more sophisticated technology or greater expertise using it.

Marketing Automation and Email

According to MarTech, the best performers had broader functionality in marketing automation platforms across all industries. In six of the seven industries they showed equal or lower organizational maturity. Email showed the opposite pattern. Best performers had greater maturity across all industries while using less sophisticated feature sets. Stronger execution in areas such as deliverability, authentication, list hygiene, bounce management, and sender reputation accounted for the difference.

CRM and Other Categories

In six of seven industries the best performers had both broader functionality and greater maturity in CRM. Dashboards and collaboration technology showed a similar relationship. The report states that a marketing automation team may need access to capabilities it does not have, an email team may gain more from improving operations, and a CRM team may require investment in both.

CDP and Other Tools

According to MarTech, top performers had less CDP functionality and lower maturity than lower-performing companies across all industries. The same held for programmatic advertising and governance and privacy tools. Customer data warehouses now handle more data management functions while many CDPs shift toward activation and engagement.

Existing Capabilities

According to MarTech, marketing automation, customer data warehouses, ecommerce platforms, and audience marketing are areas where companies can use more of their existing capabilities without needing more sophisticated processes or greater expertise.