6 core competencies every martech manager needs

Marketing technology, or martech, refers to tools and systems designed to support marketing efforts. It can also encompass technology used for sales and advertising. Because of its broad scope, it’s crucial for marketers with diverse expertise to participate in setting up and managing the martech stack.

There’s no single best way to organize martech oversight. The structure should be flexible and involve people from various disciplines. It needs to adapt as technology changes and as the company grows, while ensuring the technology remains effective and provides a good return on investment. 

Here’s how marketers can take part in — and even lead — the teams managing marketing technology.

Competencies needed for effective martech management

To effectively lead and participate in managing marketing technology, you must think about it strategically. Developing skills in martech architecture is crucial, as this expertise is essential for martech management and is not limited to IT teams.

You can add significant value by seeing how all marketing processes fit together and using martech to enhance them. Because managing martech requires teamwork, you can become a key advisor or even a leader in these collaborative efforts.

To prepare you in guiding and leading martech teams, I’ll use the six key martech skills outlined by Austin Hay in his Reforge course. These skills can be learned and developed within marketing teams.

1. Generalized system understanding

This involves having an overall understanding of how data flows throughout the martech stack and why each element of a system is chosen. You should be able to bring your understanding of the overall business strategy, including why customer data points are being collected and how to use them to improve the customer experience. 

2. Tool management 

You should be able to safely set up, integrate and administer tools of any kind. Ensure the marketing team understands why the setup was done in such a way and how this setup matches and can improve/automate marketing processes beyond top-of-funnel activities. You may (or may not) help in the setup itself, but you need to understand why things are set up the way they are.

3. Architecture vision

This competency is about planning how the next version of your stack will manifest to accomplish business goals. This is the most important of the competencies, as it allows for the continuing evolution of the martech. 

As a marketer, you are well-positioned to excel here because you understand the marketing processes that technology supports. You should be able to show how updates to the martech stack can help achieve business goals and improve marketing processes.

4. Capability assessment

This one is about the ability to assess tools/vendors’ value. Consider tools/vendors that could solve a problem. Work closely with other teams also involved and lead these efforts (such as IT and procurement) to ensure the right marketing problems are defined and considered during this assessment phase.

5. Tool procurement

This involves establishing vendor relationships based on business needs and the martech landscape. You can facilitate this by engaging the right stakeholders from both the vendor and client sides, ensuring the process starts correctly.

6. Organization management

It’s crucial for companies to hire and train teams to meet martech needs and grow effectively. You must build and maintain a team that develops diverse competencies, avoiding reliance on one platform or method. The goal is to align marketing processes with technology to enhance both and achieve overall business objectives.

By leveraging a systemic, big-picture view of marketing processes and how customer data can be used to improve customer experience, marketers can bring unique insights and perspectives into selecting, deploying and maintaining marketing technology. This creates a marketing technology virtuous cycle, where the return on investment of such technology is realized not only from customer-related outcomes but also from improvements throughout marketing processes. 

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