The Rise of the Platform Marketer: Performance Marketing with Google, Facebook, and Twitter, Plus the Latest High-Growth Digital Advertising Platforms

Chapter 12Marketing Technology Stack

Special Contributor: Matthew Mobley

By now, marketing technology has progressed to a point where it has outpaced the ability of most marketing organizations to realize all the addressable marketing possibilities that lay before them. Technology in and of itself is not a limiter to the marketing organization. This is not to say that there are no limitations, but many of the technological barriers related to data volumes, access speeds, and connectivity to media and channels have been overcome. The challenges in technology lie in the ability of the marketing organization to rationalize all of the capabilities into a coherent solution that does not isolate data and insights in any channel or media. Every component in the technology stack, or platform, must work in concert with each of the others. They must have mechanisms to share data and insights, to deploy unified marketing messages, and to engage consumers in the context of previous experiences with the brand, regardless of the channel or media. This rationalization of the technology stack is where most organizations stumble.

There are many obstacles to achieving a rationalized technology stack, including factors relating to organization, expertise, rapid technology evolution, and overselling by platform companies. These obstacles are manifested because of humans, not technology. Another contributor to these issues is the lack of a universal marketing stack. You cannot procure a single platform ...