Best of LinkedIn: MarTech Insights CW 44/ 45

00:00:00: This episode is provided by Thomas Allgaier and Franis, based on the most relevant LinkedIn posts about MarTech in calendar weeks, forty-four and forty-five.

00:00:08: Franis is a B to B market research company helping enterprises gain the market, customer and competitive insights needed to drive growth and success.

00:00:16: Welcome back to the deep dive.

00:00:18: You know, if you're in B to B marketing right now, you're probably looking at your tech stack and having this this realization that the big challenge isn't buying the next shiny tool.

00:00:28: It's making all the tech you already own actually, you know, deliver.

00:00:32: That is the absolute heart of the conversation we saw all over LinkedIn these past couple weeks.

00:00:36: It's a huge theme.

00:00:38: So what do we got for this deep dive?

00:00:39: Well, we've sifted through hundreds of posts, and it all really boils down to three big connected ideas.

00:00:45: This massive shift in what AI is, the paralyzing crisis of data debt and the ROI pressure that's hitting everyone.

00:00:53: And the big takeaway from all of it.

00:00:55: That AI is only as good as the data it sits on.

00:00:58: And just as important, the operational processes that run it.

00:01:01: That's really our mission today, to connect those dots for you.

00:01:04: OK, let's do it.

00:01:04: Where do we start?

00:01:05: Let's jump into theme one.

00:01:07: what people were calling the agentic shift.

00:01:10: AI isn't just a button you push for simple automation anymore.

00:01:14: It's something else entirely now.

00:01:15: Right.

00:01:16: I saw Jose Tomas-Dara's describe it as an orchestration layer, so less of a tool and more like the conductor of the whole MarTech orchestra.

00:01:24: Exactly.

00:01:25: It's connecting the data, the content, the channels, all of it.

00:01:28: It's moving from just following your rules to actually making its own decisions.

00:01:32: And

00:01:33: that has some pretty big architectural consequences, right?

00:01:36: Huge.

00:01:36: Florian Delvall had a great way of putting it.

00:01:38: He said, we're moving away from a neatly stacked diagram where you know what the output will be.

00:01:43: Yeah, the old.

00:01:43: if this then that logic.

00:01:45: Right.

00:01:45: And we're moving to an agent network where AI agents move across your systems making probabilistic decisions.

00:01:52: They're reasoning.

00:01:54: They're guessing based on context.

00:01:55: Which is so important because real buyer behavior is messy.

00:01:59: It's ambiguous.

00:02:00: It's not a neat diagram.

00:02:02: It never is.

00:02:03: And that's why John Miller's point was so powerful.

00:02:05: He basically argued that this new reasoning AI is going to replace the old rules-based automation systems we all grew up with.

00:02:13: Because they just can't handle that ambiguity.

00:02:15: They're too brittle.

00:02:16: They break.

00:02:16: Yeah.

00:02:17: And we're already seeing the big vendors react.

00:02:19: Like Salesforce.

00:02:21: Navdeep Singh highlighted their agent force marketing.

00:02:24: The interesting thing there was the framing.

00:02:26: Yeah, it wasn't by another tool.

00:02:28: No, it was.

00:02:29: this is the AI brain inside the clouds you already use, like marketing cloud.

00:02:34: It's embedding the intelligence, not bolting it on.

00:02:36: Which brings us to orchestration.

00:02:39: Sana Ramiki made the point that this orchestration layer has to be at the center of everything you do.

00:02:44: Why is that?

00:02:45: Because think about the customer journey.

00:02:47: They're on your fight.

00:02:48: then chat GPT, then social.

00:02:50: You can't build a separate backend for every single channel.

00:02:53: It would be a nightmare.

00:02:54: You

00:02:54: need one central intelligence to manage that experience consistently.

00:02:58: You have

00:02:58: to.

00:02:59: Otherwise, it just falls apart.

00:03:00: Okay, so the tech is getting smarter, more integrated.

00:03:04: But that leads us straight into theme two, which is maybe the most painful one.

00:03:09: The

00:03:09: ROI question.

00:03:10: The ROI pressure, yeah.

00:03:12: And the data depth that's causing it.

00:03:14: Dr.

00:03:14: Jason Palant shared this McKinsey stat that just floored me.

00:03:18: I think I know the one you mean.

00:03:20: They interviewed Fortune-Five Hundred CMOs and the number who could clearly articulate the return on their Mar-Tech investments was zero.

00:03:29: Zero.

00:03:30: It's just, it's an incredible number.

00:03:32: That's not just a small problem.

00:03:33: That's an existential threat to marketing budgets everywhere.

00:03:37: So why?

00:03:38: Why is it failing so badly?

00:03:39: The consensus on LinkedIn points to one thing.

00:03:42: massive underutilization.

00:03:44: Yeah, Gina for Tarkin Jelly was talking about this.

00:03:46: Brian Coleman actually put a number on it.

00:03:48: He said teams often use only about fifteen percent of what they pay for.

00:03:51: Fifteen percent.

00:03:52: That's just burning money.

00:03:54: And it's not because the tools lack features.

00:03:56: No, it's never about the features.

00:03:58: It's broken integrations.

00:03:59: It's bad training.

00:04:00: It's processes that look good on paper, but have no connection to reality.

00:04:04: And the root of all of that is the data.

00:04:07: Matthew Lee hammers this point home.

00:04:10: You can't do personalization.

00:04:12: You certainly can't do AI without trusted data.

00:04:15: And that trust just isn't there.

00:04:17: That same Salesforce report, it was wild.

00:04:20: It showed big companies have, on average, fifteen different customer data platforms.

00:04:25: Fifteen?

00:04:26: How can you have fifteen versions of the truth?

00:04:28: You can't.

00:04:29: And less than half the teams actually feel confident in the data they're using.

00:04:33: So it's no wonder the AI projects are stalling out.

00:04:35: It's data chaos.

00:04:36: But people are sharing fixes, right?

00:04:38: It's not all doom and gloom.

00:04:40: No, absolutely.

00:04:41: Tobias Harttung shared a great story from Meta.

00:04:43: They used Datacloud to consolidate six Martek tools down to three.

00:04:47: And that

00:04:47: actually worked.

00:04:48: I mean, fewer tools sounds good, but what did they gain?

00:04:51: They

00:04:51: cut their OPEX massively.

00:04:53: for one.

00:04:54: But more importantly, they unlocked totally new revenue by monetizing their mid-market audience data, which was siloed before, so data cleanup became a revenue generator.

00:05:03: That's

00:05:03: the holy grail, turning a cost center into a profit center.

00:05:07: And we also saw really practical advice.

00:05:09: Like, Tom Barth had specific tips for Mercado and Salesforce users.

00:05:14: He said, look, treat Salesforce as the system of record, period.

00:05:20: And then you restrict Marketo's ability to write data back into it.

00:05:23: So you create a clear hierarchy, no more fighting over which system has the right data.

00:05:27: Exactly.

00:05:28: You enforce that integrity, which is the perfect bridge to our third theme.

00:05:32: Which is marketing operations as the strategic glue holding all this together.

00:05:36: That's

00:05:36: it.

00:05:36: Because you can have the smartest AI and the cleanest data, but without the right guardrails, it's all useless.

00:05:42: Jessica Kow and Sarah McNamara were both making this point that MOP's leaders are really the ones who have to lead this charge.

00:05:49: They have to.

00:05:50: They're the only ones who actually understand the plumbing.

00:05:52: They know the real workflows, not the theoretical ones.

00:05:54: They know where the data actually goes.

00:05:56: I love that quote from Abby Hill.

00:05:58: I think it was, you can't tech by your way out of a shitty process.

00:06:02: It's so good because it's so true.

00:06:04: Technology just amplifies what's already there.

00:06:06: If you have chaos, you just get faster chaos.

00:06:09: Peter Buenos said the same thing about AI.

00:06:11: You have to start by mapping your current workflows and figuring out where AI actually helps.

00:06:16: You don't just sprinkle it everywhere.

00:06:18: No, you redesign the process around the intelligence.

00:06:21: So what are the MOPs folks actually suggesting?

00:06:24: We saw some great tactical advice.

00:06:26: Perle Goyal was stressing the need to properly sync marketo programs with Salesforce campaigns.

00:06:31: Which sounds super technical, but it's crucial.

00:06:34: It's everything.

00:06:35: It's how you get accurate ROI tracking.

00:06:37: It's how you get sales and marketing to stop arguing about who gets credit.

00:06:41: Right.

00:06:41: And then Mike Rizzo tackled the trust issue with lead routing, you know, that automated black box.

00:06:47: The leads just disappear.

00:06:48: His point was you need transparency.

00:06:50: You need real-time audit logs so sales can see why a lead went where it did.

00:06:54: That's how you build trust.

00:06:56: So it's about making the systems accountable.

00:06:58: And looking forward, what about the architecture itself?

00:07:02: Well, Sarah McNamara highlighted the MOP's twenty-twenty-six outlook.

00:07:05: The big shift is away from monolithic all-in-one platforms.

00:07:10: And toward what?

00:07:10: Toward

00:07:11: composable stacks.

00:07:12: Stitching together the best in-class tools for each job, often using an IPS, an integration platform, to connect them all.

00:07:20: It gives you way more flexibility to implement AI where you need it.

00:07:23: Okay, so that's the internal picture.

00:07:25: But all of this is happening because of massive external pressure.

00:07:29: The channels are just evolving so fast.

00:07:30: I mean, unbelievably

00:07:31: fast.

00:07:32: I mean, look at social commerce.

00:07:34: Victorisa Malachelskyta shared an example of a brand selling two point seven million dollars worth of product in fourteen hours.

00:07:41: Fourteen hours.

00:07:42: Your back end stack has to be able to handle that thousand percent spike instantly.

00:07:46: Your CRM inventory, everything has to be in perfect sync.

00:07:49: If it's not, you've got a disaster on your hands.

00:07:52: And at the same time, the way people find you is changing.

00:07:54: Jordan Brom was talking of the shift from SEO to GEO.

00:07:58: Generative Engine Optimization.

00:07:59: Exactly.

00:08:00: AI assistants are becoming the new front door to the internet.

00:08:03: So you have to optimize for how a large language model will see you, not just a search engine for

00:08:07: all of us.

00:08:08: So you're optimizing to be cited as an authority and an AI's answer.

00:08:12: Yes, which is a whole new ballgame.

00:08:14: And yet, through all this change, K. Keenaz reminded us of an old classic.

00:08:20: Let me guess.

00:08:20: Email.

00:08:21: Email.

00:08:22: Still the backbone.

00:08:24: Still critical for identity, for retention.

00:08:26: It's the channel that supports all the other channels.

00:08:29: Okay, so to wrap this up, we've talked about the agentic shift, this move to AI orchestration.

00:08:34: We cover the ROI crisis, which is really a data and process crisis in disguise.

00:08:38: And how MOPs is the key to fixing it with a focus on composable stacks to handle all this external pressure.

00:08:46: The theme is clear.

00:08:47: Get your house in order first.

00:08:49: And maybe the final thought to leave you with connects back to leadership.

00:08:53: Bobbido Rosario and Hengad Jendra Brug both pointed this out.

00:08:56: The biggest hurdle isn't the technology.

00:08:58: It's the organization.

00:08:59: If the organization around the technology, as buyers get smarter and faster with AI, leaders have to fix the fragmented C-suite.

00:09:07: They have to build alliances across departments.

00:09:09: Because in the end, your GTM success is defined by people and process, not just the tools you buy.

00:09:14: That's the real strategic challenge right now.

00:09:17: If you enjoy this deep dive, new episodes drop every two weeks.

00:09:20: Also, check out our other editions on account-based marketing, field marketing, channel marketing, AI, in B to B marketing, go-to-market, and social selling.

00:09:28: Thank you for joining us for this analysis of the Martec landscape.

00:09:31: Hit that subscribe button so you don't miss our next deep dive.

00:09:34: We'll see you soon.