MarTech Stack Strategies: The View from Europe

Marketing technology is universal in scope, but sometimes regional in form. While some European MarTech leaders self-identify as "behind" their Americas counterparts, this is typically not the case. However, in a European context, some issues and strategies take on a different dimension.

That was the conclusion of last month's in-person gathering of Real Story Group's MarTech Stack Leadership Council in Amsterdam, where representatives from a dozen global and European enterprises gathered to share notes. These are private meetings and so I can't share the specifics, but here are five general take-aways.

Composable Stacks (Still) Rule

Of the twelve major enterprises around the table, fully eleven of them rocked composable stacks, with no single vendor dominating. In nearly every case, Adobe, Salesforce, and/or Oracle were pushing hard to own the data layer. This is the great lock-in race you all face right now.

Savvier MarTech leaders remain skeptical of putting too many eggs in one vendor basket, particularly with respect to vertical integration, which can substantially reduce your agility, especially as omnichannel requirements mature. Our happy hours included some interesting conversations about how enterprise leaders were staving off mega-vendor pressure... ??

Organizational Change Management

Maturing stacks with an eye to an omnichannel future mean more emphasis on decoupled, foundational services, which in turn implies some difficult organizational change management. I can't share all the interesting tactics here, but will offer a couple of conclusions from the discussions:

1) The future compels more investment in centralized marketing ops and somewhat less (but still significant) emphasis on tactical channel marketing

2) Governance requires getting different departments to work together, but if Marketing doesn't lead this, no one else will. So giddyup!

Rise of Content Orchestration

A couple of interesting case studies tracked an evolution from content operations to content orchestration: a more sophisticated view of content management that allows for more complex content supply chains, near constant asset derivations for various channels, and the increasing importance of content analytics.

I sense more maturity here in Europe, perhaps due to the legacy of essential multi-lingual requirements compelling enterprises to think more carefully about content, especially component content.

Not coincidentally, we saw more uptake of what RSG calls "omnichannel content platforms" (OCPs). It's no surprise that the major OCP solutions were born in Europe.

Privacy and Consent

Europe is ahead of most of the world here, in following both the letter and spirit of various laws. But it's still an evolving picture, requiring ever-greater resources and increasing cooperation between Marketing and Legal/Compliance -- two departments that tend to see the alternate sides of the same coin quite differently.

After an initial tendency to almost over-react on this issue, we're now seeing more measured and thoughtful approaches, compared to North American brethren. Still, every organization struggles with addressing channel-specific preferences and maintaining essential context around all consents. From a technology perspective, a multi-vendor solution landscape appears to be emerging. (RSG subscribers can ping me for more details).

Uneven AI

We held some fascinating workshops on what European and global enterprises are actually doing with AI. Hint: Generative AI is not as dominant as you might think.

I'll have more to say about this in a subsequent post.

Are You an Enterprise MarTech Leader?

Care to join us next time for inside scoop on what other major enterprises are doing and learning in the world of MarTech? RSG's MarTech Leadership Council meets privately twice a year in person and several times online in-between. Enterprise leaders may apply to join on behalf of your firm. Note: this is an exclusive space with no vendors or consultants.