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Driving an Effective Technology Strategy in the AI Era
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The CMO's Role in Technology Strategy
Today's CMO is responsible for driving the overall marketing strategy and the technology strategy that supports it. When it comes to technology, you don’t have to be able to build or manage the details of the marketing technology stack, but you should be actively involved in:
  • Driving the data strategy
  • Developing the stack strategy
  • Prioritizing technology programs
  • Reviewing stack performance
  • Structuring the organization so that team members have the skills to select, implement, utilize, and manage the technology that is being purchased
Poor decisions in any of these areas can lead to:
  • Unacceptable marketing performance and missed revenue numbers due to a lack of technology performance or utilization of poor data to target prospects.
  • Increased cost of customer acquisition due to overspending or lack of control of the technology stack.
  • Lowered customer lifetime value (CLTV) due to overspending or lack of technology to support engagement and retention activities.
  • Organizational inefficiency and productivity issues because technology skills are not aligned with the technology that has been acquired.
Ultimately, it is the CMO who is measured on marketing’s success, and if poor technology choices impede success, it is the CMO who is accountable.
Getting Started - Master the Basics
To effectively lead your team’s technology strategy, it's important to understand your current technology environment. This includes knowing what technology products are in place, how products are performing, and how well your existing technology and data architectures support your marketing strategy and objectives.
Your operations team or technology lead should be able to provide you with a comprehensive inventory of all technologies and data sources—whether acquired, developed internally, or managed by agencies—along with their associated costs, functionalities, and key dependencies to serve as a framework for assessing your existing environment.
If your team lacks a comprehensive overview of your technology stack (very common in an environment where purchasing has been distributed among teams), it’s crucial to prioritize an audit to create a complete inventory. If you don’t know where you are, you won’t be able to move forward.
Watch our Managing Your MarTech video to see just how easy it is to create, collaborate, and report on all the details of your technology stack and architecture.
Download our ebook: Marketing Technology Management for CMOs
Drive the Rationalization of Your Stack
Often, it takes fresh eyes and someone who isn't emotionally attached to a specific set of technology to challenge the team to look for opportunities to rationalize and optimize the technology stack.
With a complete inventory in hand, you’ll be able to lead an effort to uncover redundant products, contracts, and functionality, as well as products that are being paid for but are not being used. The advantage of rationalization is that you will:
  • End up with a clean technology stack to work from as you define your technology strategy.
  • Likely reduce technology expenses or free up the budget for new technology (our customers typically reduce costs by 20%) that aligns with your strategy.
CabinetM’s stack reports make it easy to target technology for retirement.
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Clean, Accurate and Complete Data is Essential
A key function of your technology stack is to source and collect data; verify, clean, dedupe, and append that data; and then distribute that data to the technology products that can analyze and act upon it to target and engage your prospects and customers. Duplicate data increases marketing costs, while bad data leads to poor marketing performance.
You don’t need to create the data strategy and architecture, but you do need to understand where data comes from and resides, how secure that data is, and whether the data is clean and complete. An architecture diagram is an excellent tool to support a discussion on this topic.
Using CabinetM, with one click, you can transform your marketing technology stack into a visualization of how technology products are connected and how data moves across your technology architecture. This same visualization will help you understand the critical dependencies between products and the impact of choosing to add a new product or eliminate an existing product from the stack.
AI Will Change Everything
AI adds another layer of complexity to the marketing function. CMOs are expected to understand AI's application in marketing, establish ethical guidelines for the use of Generative AI, and craft and deliver an overall AI strategy to the company's executive team and board.
As you consider where AI fits in your marketing strategy, complete, clean, and accurate data becomes mandatory. Any AI-enabled technology that you introduce into your stack will only deliver results if it works with good data. Regardless of when you plan to introduce AI, now’s the time to make sure your data sources, content, and architecture are sound.
The Path to Success
Today’s marketing environment is very complex, and the CMO's responsibilities have never been greater. You have to deliver an innovative brand strategy and extraordinary marketing programs, understand an ever-evolving technology landscape, and be accountable for both marketing and sales performance. It can be overwhelming. The key to success is surrounding yourself with experts (in-house and externally) and finding the tools that help you manage your key responsibilities.
While CabinetM has evolved into a powerful tool for marketing operations, our foundational mission remains unchanged: to help CMOs gain a clear understanding of their technology landscape in order to make informed decisions about strategy. This foundational principle continues to guide the platform, reflected in a user-friendly interface that simplifies the compilation, visualization, and reporting of information. As former marketing executives, we’re here to help.
Check out these additional resources or book time to chat about your challenges.

About us

CabinetM helps modern marketing and sales teams manage the technology they have and find the tools they need. The CabinetM marketing technology management platform enables full lifecycle support around technology discovery, qualification, implementation, and management. Marketing teams using CabinetM gain critical visibility and leverage to save time, money, drive revenue, and manage digital transformation. The company has built the industry’s most comprehensive database of over 16,000 marketing tools across 500+ categories, and currently has the largest set of marketing stack data as a result of hundreds of marketing stacks that have been built and are being managed on the platform.

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115 Oxbow Rd.
Framingham, MA 01701
eross@cabinetm.com

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