Too many marketing leaders are still building their tech stacks like status symbols—trophies for vendor decks and conference slides. The truth? Your stack doesn’t exist to look good on paper. It exists to drive revenue, and if it’s not doing that, it’s just overhead.

We’ve reached a point where most organizations have more tech than they can effectively use. Platforms get added every year—often for “visibility,” not necessity—until the stack becomes a graveyard of disconnected tools, half-implemented integrations, and frustrated users.

Here’s the real problem:

Marketers confuse owning technology with operationalizing it. They measure success by how many logos they have in their ecosystem, not by the business outcomes those platforms enable. Vendors reinforce this behavior with glossy reports that reward platform proliferation instead of performance.

So, how do you fix it?

  1. Start with strategy, not software.

    Define what success looks like in business terms—revenue growth, conversion efficiency, customer lifetime value—and align your technology to support that.

  2. Audit for redundancy and ROI.

    If two tools overlap by 60%, consolidate. Focus on fewer platforms that actually move metrics, not shiny add-ons that create noise.

  3. Invest in enablement, not expansion.

    Your tech only performs as well as your people. Train teams to use the tools they already have before chasing the next one.

  4. Demand accountability from vendors.

    Don’t let them sell you on benchmarks that have nothing to do with your business goals. Hold every technology partner to one metric: impact on revenue.

The takeaway

A tech stack isn’t a badge of modernity—it’s an ecosystem built to enable growth. When you strip away the hype and focus on execution, you’ll discover that most of what you already have is enough. The question isn’t “What can we buy next?” It’s “What can we finally make work?”

See the full episode on this week's Revenue Marketing Raw with Dr. Debbie Qaqish and Jeff Pedowitz