For marketers, the spectacular promise of data, technology and now AI has never been greater, but nor has the complexity.
The tech industry and media headlines constantly promise marketers to become more “streamlined” and “empowered”. Yes, the experience of many brands is often the opposite.
Brands are increasingly growing frustrated
Are you seeing and feeling those promised benefits of technology, data and better measurement? If you are, then you’re one of the lucky ones.
Most marketers we engage with are increasingly frustrated and losing control in proving commercial success.
The CMO Survey out of the US also reveals a 40% chasm of underperformance relative to the expectation of tech. This means that the payoffs don’t match the hopes.
The same survey revealed that only 51.5% of all martech tools are utilised.
Frightening really.
And with the next wave of AI agents and other innovative machine learning options growing in momentum, the tsunami of choice is creating massive headaches for marketers and their technology teams.
Time to rethink conventional marketing
How can you cut through the noise, optimise tech investments, reallocate the right capabilities, and maximise data-driven decision-making?
Before I outline five tips, let me ask you three quick questions to get on the same page:
- Does your tech stack contain more tools that capture varying degrees of data but still provide bottlenecks and inefficiency?
- Are you concerned about the implications of the evolving privacy regulations on your management and governance of data?
- Have you successfully linked all your marketing spend and activity to commercial outcomes?
If any of these questions are puzzling, then you’re not alone, as the current challenging environment demands new marketing thinking.
The overwhelm of data and tech in marketing
It’s exciting, but it’s bloody hard work.
Most marketers are now expected to harness the power of customer data, predictive analytics, AI-driven insights, automation platforms, personalisation engines, and be testing the ever evolving media landscape—all while ensuring compliance with data privacy laws.
And it’s difficult to manage the complexity and maintain focus on what matters most.
The tech vendors skew to their system, the social media platforms have significant self-interest within their own walled gardens, and the digital tech giants want more of your ad dollars.
The reality is that most marketing teams are drowning in tech rather than leveraging it effectively.
Simply purchasing more tech and tools doesn’t solve marketing challenges.
Success comes from integrating and operationalising it effectively within an organisation’s unique strategy and workflow.
Every application should be different. But tech is typically approached from a one-size-fits-all all perspective.
Don’t fall for this trap. It’s not about the tech, it’s about the incremental value that you can generate and prove from utilising the technology.
Five ways to refocus around value
When it comes to regaining control of your data and technology ecosystem, then an independent eye can make sense of existing tools, uncover inefficiencies, and help you embed bespoke solutions for more sustainable success.
Here are five ways to achieve real value:
- Technology rationalisation and optimisation
Most marketing teams have a fat tech stack, filled with redundant, underutilised, or misaligned platforms.
Our recommendation is to conduct a tech assessment of what’s being used, what’s providing value, and clearly identifying where there’s room for consolidation.
The goal isn’t to push the latest shiny object, but to streamline existing systems for greater efficiency and ROI.
One of our latest clients was undertaking an enterprise-wide transformation because of a key corporate acquisition. They were looking to speed up the due diligence.
We helped them map out the current duplications and disconnections and helped them focus on core requirements and the most important evaluation areas to help achieve their desired future state.
This is one of the big gaps that we are seeing. There is limited evaluation for what’s specifically required to implement a strategy. We tend to see a laundry list of requirements – many fantastic – but not logically mapped to achieving success.
Its early stages in the client’s data-driven maturity journey and optimisation will also require a level of cultural change, capability training, and process revision whilst achieving BAU refinement, but now there’s a roadmap to follow for the redefined approach.
- Data strategy and governance
Even with a robust tech stack, we see marketers struggle to extract meaningful insights from their data.
Poor data hygiene, fragmented sources, conflicts of interest, and lack of governance result in inconsistent customer experiences.
Marketers must build a strong data foundation, ensuring they have the right collection, storage, and prioritised activation strategies in place to support personalised and effective campaigns and activity.
This was central to one of our latest client partnerships, where a quick-win focus was given to data prioritisation and a data governance framework to ensure meaningful data was being brought into their environment.
And importantly, the data could be better utilised by identifying actionable, testable insights linked to measurable customer actions and outcomes.
One of our hottest tips is to clarify how data will be used rather than treating it as a volume game.
Achieving greater targeting is very different to profile enrichment, which is different again to unearthing insights for strategic development.
- Bridging the gap between marketing and IT
Many marketing teams have varying levels of technical expertise in effectively integrating systems, building automation workflows, or implementing advanced analytics.
At the same time, IT teams often operate in silos, disconnected from marketing’s priorities.
It’s essential to have a bridge between both departments, ensuring that marketing technology decisions align with broader business objectives while being technically feasible and scalable.
Especially when it comes to adtech and platforms.
Another client brought us in to help them better navigate the new fragmented media landscape.
We analysed their budget allocations, use of market mix modelling, approach to measuring social media and activity within walled gardens, and growth strategy for first-party data collection.
It was a complex system with many silo technologies cross a DSP, Clean Room, Ad platform, Ad serving tech, varied data capture processes, workflows, and research and analytics environments.
In short, a significant gap needed to be bridged between the teams. Which in our experience is often easier to see and help solve as an external advisor, rather than resulting in skews towards specific interests of internal parties.
- Achieving alignment and driving adoption
One of the biggest reasons why marketing technologies fail is the lack of strategic alignment.
Even the most powerful platforms are useless if multiple teams don’t know how to use them effectively.
Another recent client we partnered with had rapidly commenced a structural, team, and process transformation. The digital, data, brand, and connections teams were looking to validate their current path.
While a vision and north star had been described, contention remained about the best strategy for achieving measurable and attributable success.
We helped them change the narrative by creating benchmarks to provide proof.
It’s an exciting time as we shift our focus from low-cost, high-reach media and disconnected experiences to targeted cohorts, location-based engagement, and measurable, attributable channel and creative combinations that demonstrate a proven return on investment.
The tip here is to validate your tests and prove an incremental outcome, versus continue to sprout theories or hold on to outdated ways.
- Ensuring compliance and future-proofing strategies
With increasing scrutiny on consumer data and privacy laws evolving rapidly, marketing teams need to ensure they’re compliant.
There’s no option. Businesses must learn to navigate these complexities, ensuring they have the right consent management frameworks, data protection policies, and ethical marketing practices.
Furthermore, whilst marketing strategies can be potentially future-proofed, they must remain adaptable as new technologies and regulations emerge.
Our tip: align your privacy office, legal team, CIO & CMO.
Realising improved value for your budget is our success measure
This is not intended to be a sales post, but it’s probably important to say that TrinityP3 is different to many consultancies in the digital space.
We don’t talk jargon. We simplify concepts and make technology and data models approachable for non-technical & technical marketers.
We offer tangible solutions to avoid the traps, not endless slide decks.
We will always remain vendor-agnostic – we’ve seen too many marketing professionals burned by technology vendors that oversell solutions without delivering results.
Being neutral means we focus on helping clients choose the best tools and tech for their specific needs rather than pushing a preferred platform.
The digital landscape is moving even faster with AI.
Instead of rigid, long-term roadmaps, we believe in helping marketing teams test, iterate, and adapt strategies in real time based on performance data and emerging trends.
Most importantly, you must regain focus on commercial outcomes
We know you care about tangible results, so whether it’s a greater focus on customer acquisition, engagement, retention, and revenue growth or proving the commercial impact of brand investment, we will help you tie activity back to business impact, making it clear how streamlined operations lead to better marketing performance.
A final thought: take risks – test and learn, make wise choices
Forget the fear of missing out.
There’s never been a better time to allocate a % of your budget and resources to test, learn, fail, win, and gain competitive advantage again.
You don’t necessarily always need more tools but ways to manage and leverage them more effectively.
You need an approach that simplifies complexity, drives efficiency, and ultimately helps you do what you do best—create more meaningful connections with your prospects and customers.
If you feel overwhelmed by your tech stack, underwhelmed by data insights, and stretched thin by the demands of modern marketing, then you may need a proven partner to work with you.
Seek an impartial view of ad tech, SaaS solutions, 1PD utilisation, digital experience platforms, stages of sophistication in data governance, selection of dynamic consumer journey builders, other automation, data prioritisation, better measurement, and commercial performance reporting approaches.
As an independent advisory with no technology to sell, we will always say it as we see it.
To better understand our approach to navigating the marketing chaos, read more on marketing transformation, including effectiveness, technology and data or contact us for a confidential conversation.