Many companies fail to generate expected value from their marketing technology investments
Despite the endless possibilities tech brings to marketing, the harsh truth is, most companies are not seeing the value they expected. This isn’t about underinvestment. In fact, the opposite is happening. According to the 2024 MarTech Replacement Survey, 57% of marketers said they added one to five new tools to their stack this year. That’s growth. But alongside it, 66% said they still can’t measure impact. So we’re seeing more tools, more cost, and not enough clarity on results.
For C-suite leaders, the implications are direct. You’re asked to sign off on bigger budgets for tools that claim more precision, more insight, more automation. But your team still can’t answer the board’s essential questions: Is this contributing to revenue? Is it improving customer experience? Are we able to personalize effectively? These are not small gaps, they’re strategy blockers.
The problem isn’t the tools themselves. It’s the broken infrastructure connecting them and the lack of integrated measurement. If data’s disjointed or stuck in silos, even the best tools won’t work. And if marketing and IT aren’t working together, you’re likely spending millions on fragmented systems that never translate into impact.
The fix isn’t about buying more. It’s about aligning better, platforms, data, and people. You need a top-down, strategy-led approach that forces every tool to justify its seat on the stack.
Effectively orchestrated technology stacks provide significant competitive advantage
There’s a clear pattern among market leaders, they use fewer tools better. Or more accurately, they orchestrate their technology around their actual business priorities. According to Bain & Company, companies that are gaining market share and revenue, defined as at least 7% market share growth, or 4% share and 11% revenue growth, are twice as likely to run a fully mature marketing tech stack. That’s not just about tools. It’s about how tools are selected, configured, and made to work together.
Leading companies use marketing tech strategically. They don’t stockpile software. They ask: does this advance personalization? Does it improve our intelligence across channels? Will it increase our clarity on what’s working? Then they act accordingly. Their tech stacks aren’t sprawl, they’re systems, set up for scale and designed to drive growth.
For executives, this isn’t about being digital for digital’s sake. This is about leveraging systems that operate in sync with revenue objectives. Technology is a multiplier, but only when it’s wired into the value engine of the business.
If your platform decisions aren’t tied to priority use cases, like real-time personalization or actionable insights on customer behavior, you’re likely over-investing and under-delivering. Leaders don’t guess what works. They build ecosystems that are accountable to outcomes and measurable to the dollar. That’s how they move faster. That’s why they lead.
Leading organizations use customized primary platforms enhanced with best-of-breed tools
The top-performing companies don’t settle for a generic marketing tech setup. They don’t simply choose the most popular suite on the market or patch together random point solutions. Instead, they identify a core platform, whether that’s a customer data platform, a content management system, or another high-leverage tool, and enhance it with select, best-in-class tools that solve specific, high-value problems.
This model works because it minimizes complexity while maximizing fit. According to Bain’s research, leading companies are 1.2 times more likely than laggards to follow this approach. But customizations are not implemented endlessly. They’re implemented selectively, only where the return justifies the effort. No overengineering. No bloated stacks. Just targeted enhancements that enable precision and flexibility in personalization, targeting, and performance measurement.
If you’re in the C-suite, this approach should resonate. It’s disciplined. You don’t have to spend more, you just need to be sharper about where you spend and why. Evaluate every platform and tool against a clear strategic rationale. What’s the most valuable use case? What tech enables it? Start there. Skip the rest.
Also, there’s no one-size-fits-all stack. Winning organizations choose a platform that plays to their unique strengths. If first-party data is the driver of your strategy, focus your stack around that. If editorial content moves your brand, then build on that foundation. The tech must reflect the business you’re trying to build, not a generic blueprint.
Integration between separate marketing tools is a critical differentiator for success
You can’t capture value from your marketing stack unless the components talk to each other. Integration isn’t optional, it’s fundamental. Whether it’s your customer data, content systems, CRM, or ad platforms, what separates the leaders is their ability to make these tools work as one system. That’s how they unlock real-time insights, coordinated campaigns, and measurable ROI.
Bain’s survey shows that leading companies are twice as likely as laggards to actively integrate tools across the organization. This isn’t just about APIs or middleware connections, it’s about the operating model. Top performers embed integration into daily workflows. They connect business and technology teams so that system capabilities are understood, and use cases are aligned with key objectives.
Airbnb is a clear case. They developed a low-code platform that lets nontechnical team members create personalized, behavior-based communications at scale. This isn’t just technical enablement, it’s operational acceleration. The outcome? More precise targeting, less dependency on engineers, and marketing speed that matches customer expectations.
For senior executives, the takeaway is straightforward. Integration must be an intentional priority, not a side project. It’s not about chasing flashy features, it’s about creating a stack that can actually deliver on strategic goals. If your tools aren’t fully integrated, you’re working below your potential, no matter how sophisticated your platform claims to be.
Adoption of advanced AI-powered tools distinguishes marketing leaders from laggards
The gap between leaders and the rest is growing wider, and AI is one of the main reasons. Leading companies are adopting AI-powered and highly customizable tools faster and more intelligently. According to Bain & Company’s research, they are eight times more likely than laggards to leverage these kinds of technologies. That’s not a minor difference. That’s a full shift in operating pace.
What sets these organizations apart isn’t that they’re building everything from the ground up. In fact, they’re doing the opposite. They know where to apply off-the-shelf AI tools that already exist within many marketing platforms, tools that can support segmentation, personalization, predictions, and campaign optimization. Leaders don’t waste time reinventing those capabilities. Instead, they focus their investments on tailoring AI for critical, high-impact areas, places where the returns justify the additional customization.
For C-suite executives, the message is clear. Most AI capabilities you need are already in your stack or easily available in the market. What matters is clarity on your use cases and priority outcomes. Start with built-in options, test them in real scenarios, and evaluate impact early. There is no benefit in spending years to develop from scratch when you’re trying to capture value in quarters.
Falling behind in AI adoption now is going to cost companies long-term in productivity, engagement, and revenue. This isn’t about chasing trends. This is about using AI where it adds operational precision. Leaders treating AI as a high-ROI execution lever are simply moving faster, and with more accuracy.
Chewy exemplifies the effective use of customer data integration to drive personalization and business growth
Chewy doesn’t just collect customer data, it connects it. That’s where the value shows up. From what customers share directly to what they express in call center conversations and browsing history, Chewy builds robust customer profiles. These profiles are the foundation for how it drives personalized engagement, improves retention, and delivers measurable growth.
They don’t do it alone. Chewy partners with companies like MessageGears for data segmentation and Braze for CRM. These integrations allow them to scale real-time insights and translate that directly into action, automated reminders for pet food, follow-ups on medicine refills, or even handwritten birthday cards for pets. It’s a full-cycle feedback loop between customer behavior and marketing output.
What matters for executives is that Chewy has built this ecosystem around customer priorities, not marketing wishes. And that focus is paying off, increased loyalty scores and profitable revenue growth. Everything is wired to optimize customer experience and predict what comes next. No bloat, just relevant actions at the right time.
This level of precision is not the result of buying more tech. It’s the result of aligning systems around customer behavior and organizing teams to act on those insights. The takeaway here is direct: if your tech stack isn’t enabling this kind of personalization at scale, you’re missing out on obvious upside, and your competition isn’t.
Marketers must ask strategic questions to align technology investments with core growth drivers
The companies gaining ground don’t succeed because they spend more, they succeed because they ask better questions. Before adding another platform or AI solution, leading marketers pause and align their decisions to business outcomes. It starts with clarity: What specific growth metrics are we trying to influence? Which tools in our stack directly enable that?
Executives should press their teams for substance, not surface features. Ask what drivers actually generate customer acquisition, loyalty, and margin expansion, and whether the current technology stack is built to support, measure, and optimize those levers. If the answer isn’t clear, the investment likely isn’t strategic.
Shelfware, tools purchased but unused or underutilized, is another silent performance drag. Before renewing vendor contracts or onboarding new platforms, assess how much of your current tech sits idle. Often, better data integration or refining workflows can unlock additional value without adding new tools. That’s more efficient, and in many cases, more productive.
Then there’s AI. Too many teams are trying to build from scratch without understanding what’s already available. Modern marketing platforms come embedded with dozens of AI features, from content recommendations to churn prediction models. Leading organizations don’t wait years to build from the ground up. They deploy first, learn fast, then invest in custom solutions only where the highest returns are proven.
For C-suite leaders, it’s time to hold your marketing function accountable for tech performance at the business level, not just adoption metrics or vague promises. Every tool in the stack must answer to a business case, a clear return, and a measurable impact. Companies that operate with that standard are progressing faster and generating more from less.
In conclusion
Technology alone doesn’t create growth. Alignment does. The companies pulling ahead aren’t throwing more tools at the problem. They’re choosing with purpose, integrating systems that actually talk to each other, and applying AI where it drives real impact, not just buzz.
For decision-makers, this is about insisting on clarity. Every marketing tool needs to prove its value. Every platform needs to support your growth priorities. And your teams, marketing, data, IT, need to operate as one.
It’s not about being first to adopt. It’s about being first to make it work. The edge goes to those who build leaner, smarter, connected stacks that serve strategy, not the other way around. That’s where the leverage is. And that’s where future growth is already taking shape.
