New CMO Council 'Matrix' Helps Optimize Martech Use

In the US, the CMO Council has launched a framework called the Apex Martech Matrix, which predicts the business value of firms' investment in marketing technology, based on company size, industry, maturity and strategic priorities. The Matrix is based on data from partner firm MartechTribe.

25 years old this year, the CMO Council promotes high-level knowledge exchange, thought leadership and networking among senior corporate marketing leaders and brand decision-makers across industries worldwide, with more than 16,000 members controlling more than $1 trillion in aggregated annual marketing expenditures and run complex, distributed marketing and sales operations worldwide. MartechTribe has spent the last nine years compiling a Martech data warehouse, with data from sixteen indsutries contributed by more than 460 experts across 31 countries.

The launch comes as most CMOs 'still struggle to extract value from increasingly complex stacks,' according to the Council. The 'Apex Martech Matrix' provides independent research, data-driven benchmarking and customer-centric insights, to help users select the right software tools and maximise their positive impact on the business. The Matrix looks only at the top 30% of companies within each industry, ranked by revenue per employee ratios based on annual reports - this is said to 'remove subjectivity' from performance claims.

An 'Insights Innovation Brief' based in initial analyses is available on the Council's web site, and highlights findings such as the importance of rapid translation of capabilities into measurable business impact; firms' tendency to overestimate the maturity of their martech stack; and the lack of correlation between 'more technology' and 'more value', with 'overbuilt' stacks often underutilized.

'Too many organizations are overbuilt, underbuilt or simply misaligned when it comes to martech,' says Donovan Neale-May (pictured), Executive Director of the CMO Council. 'The Apex Martech Matrix shifts the conversation from tools to outcomes. It shows that growth comes from aligning capability with maturity and executing with discipline.'

Companies can buy a report based on the framework focusing on a specific industry - revealing how top performers invest, build capability and drive results; or use it to benchmark their martech stack against industry peers, identify capability and maturity gaps, and receive prioritized recommendations on where to invest, optimize or eliminate spend across tools and skills. A premium 'Three-Tool Scan' is also available, evaluating performance across three selected martech tools, such as CRM, CDP, DAM or email, chosen from a comprehensive set of 49 domains.

Web sites: www.martechtribe.com and www.cmocouncil.org .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.