Making Sense of Martech

"Suite Fatigue is the moment you realize you're paying more every year for less flexibility and less value." — Adam Marketing was supposed to get simpler. Instead, it got more expensive, harder to operate, and increasingly rigid. Jacqueline sits down with Adam Greco (previously at Salesforce, Adobe, and Amplitude) to unpack the rise of "Suite Fatigue," the growing frustration with all-in-one marketing technology platforms that promised the world but delivered fragments. They get into why this moment feels different, how renewal pressure and slow innovation are turning "one vendor" into a long-term liability, and why the data warehouse is increasingly becoming the backbone of modern marketing stacks. The big question underneath it all: if you were starting from scratch today, would you still choose the same suite? Sponsor Brought to you by Hightouch — Went all-in on a big marketing suite but still struggling to get value? You're not alone. Our sponsor, Hightouch, spoke with 50+ enterprise teams and found 79% are frustrated by high costs, slow innovation, and rising complexity, often needing specialized teams just to keep things running. They'll share the full findings in a live webinar on February 12, plus what they're seeing from organizations updating their Martech stacks. Get the report and register! Timestamps 01:05 — Suite Fatigue defined: when the "simpler stack" turns into a tax 10:57 — What people admit out loud vs. what they only say off-record 15:54 — The core symptoms: lock-in, slow innovation, and forced migrations 18:12 — The Franken-suite reality: shallow integrations + pay-to-play support 27:33 — Why speed to activation breaks first in legacy stacks 43:02 — "Okay, boomer." Can suites make a comeback? 53:08 — What to do next when the math stops working Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! Always feel free to email us at podcast@themartechweekly.com. QuestionsConfessions Reddit

"We've seen companies locked into vendors for a decade with no way out." – Juan Jacqueline and Juan kick off 2026 with a quick reality check: stepping away from screens feels great, but the Martech stack doesn't magically get simpler while you're gone. They get brutally practical, drawing on conversations with 300+ brand-side marketers to map the six biggest pain points emerging across enterprise teams right now. They dig into why "Customer 360" is still mostly a fantasy, how integration complexity turns stacks into brittle Jenga towers, and why AI pressure is creating more chaos than value. From auto-renewal horror stories to redundant CDPs and initiatives chasing optics instead of ROI, the message is consistent: confidence comes from evidence, not experience bias — and the cost of getting it wrong has never been higher. Sponsor Brought to you by Hightouch — Went all-in on a big marketing suite but still struggling to get value? You're not alone. Our sponsor, Hightouch, spoke with 50+ enterprise teams and found 79% are frustrated by high costs, slow innovation, and rising complexity, often needing specialized teams just to keep things running. They'll share the full findings in a live webinar on February 12, plus what they're seeing from organizations updating their Martech stacks. Get the report and register! Timestamps 02:10 — An exclusive announcement for listeners 03:50 — Why experience-based advice keeps failing enterprise teams 07:45 — Six themes from 300+ marketer conversations: what's breaking in enterprise 10:50 — Data fragmentation and the myth of Customer 360 15:00 — Why evidence-based decisions are the only way forward 18:20 — Integration complexity, legacy sprawl, and cross-team coordination failures 26:15 — AI pressure without value: herd mentality of GenAI, risk, and bad customer experiences 31:00 — Adoption and operating model problems: utilization dropping, skills gaps growing 36:00 — Measurement, attribution, and ROI proof gaps: why nobody trusts the numbers 41:30 — Scaling personalization and execution speed: the bottlenecks no tool can fix Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! Always feel free to email us at podcast@themartechweekly.com. Questions Confessions Reddit

Email feels free, but the economics are brutal: zero-cost sending makes abuse infinitely scalable. In this episode, Jacqueline sits down with Mariska and Jakub to unpack the "bot layer" that's quietly wrecking modern email: security scanners, crawlers, and malicious automation that inflate clicks, poison dashboards, and trigger the wrong automations. They get specific about why bad actors iterate faster than platforms, why "heuristic guesswork" leads to painful false positives, and how beehiiv opted for radical transparency by showing verified clicks alongside raw data. The conversation also jumps channels: Jakub argues RCS could undercut SMS on price and become the next high-volume abuse playground. This episode was recorded in October 2025. Any references to global events were included as illustrative context, not as commentary on current news. Sponsor Brought to you by Hightouch - the leading composable CDP and decisioning platform trusted by brands like Domino's, Chime, and Aritzia. 90% of customers have a real use case live within their first week, delivering world-class personalization at scale. Learn more at www.hightouch.com/msom. Timestamps 01:20 – Worst unsubscribe nightmares, Roman aqueducts, and unexpected heroes 05:40 – Why "free" email creates systemic abuse (and why volume hides the bad actors) 08:06 – How threat actors bypass trust indicators 11:02 – The reality check: protection isn't getting easier, it's getting more complicated 19:02 – Defining non-human interactions (NHI) and bot detection 24:12 – Bot detection: definitive data vs heuristics, and why false positives hurt more 26:20 – Elevating verified human engagement at Beehiiv 33:13 – RCS vs SMS: the pricing lever that could supercharge abuse 46:14 - Global privacy legislation and the future of trust Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! Questions: https://themartechweekly.com/podcast/question/ Confessions: https://themartechweekly.com/podcast/confession-corner/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/MSoMPodcast/comments/1morng8/office_hours_questions/

Farewell, 2025 — what a year. It marked the revival of Making Sense of Martech, and we owe it all to you and the incredible guests who took a chance on us. Here are a few standout moments. Wishing you happy holidays and a brilliant new year! Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! https://theMartechweekly.com/podcast/question/ https://theMartechweekly.com/podcast/confession-corner/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MSoMPodcast/comments/1morng8/office_hours_questions/

Merry everything and more. Here's your very own present from us to you! Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! https://theMartechweekly.com/podcast/question/ https://theMartechweekly.com/podcast/confession-corner/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MSoMPodcast/comments/1morng8/office_hours_questions/

As 2025 closes out, Juan and Jacqueline team up with Keanu Taylor, The Martech Weekly's Head of Research, to read the tea leaves on what 2026 has in store for marketing technology. Their forecast is a "make or break" year in which the winners won't be the loudest early adopters, but the teams whose data and operating habits are clean enough for AI actually to stick. Keanu predicts a sharper split between the AI "haves" and "have-nots," with organizational readiness acting like gravity on every agent, model, and workflow. The bet: 2026 will expose which stacks are built for decisions, not demos — and which ones were never ready for either. Timestamps 01:08 ExactTarget's 25th Birthday/Anniversary 03:54 Prediction 1: AI Agent Adoption and Readiness 10:35 Prediction 2: The Rise of AI Decisioning Silos 21:48 Prediction 3: CDP and CEP/ESP Stack Consolidation Brought to you by Hightouch - the leading composable CDP and decisioning platform trusted by brands like Domino's, Chime, and Aritzia. 90% of customers have a real use case live within their first week, delivering world-class personalization at scale. Learn more at www.hightouch.com/msom. Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! https://theMartechweekly.com/podcast/question/ https://theMartechweekly.com/podcast/confession-corner/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MSoMPodcast/comments/1morng8/office_hours_questions/

In a lively discussion, Jason Lyman, CMO of Customer.io and a marketing veteran from Dropbox and Microsoft, explores how to make martech exciting again. He dives into the art of brand storytelling and the importance of memorable experiences, referencing creative concepts like Bob Ross and 'Raiders of the Lost Lifecycle.' Jason debunks the myth that email is dead, advocates for modern, engaging live experiences, and shares insights on building ambitious, community-focused brands. His enthusiasm for playful marketing strategies is contagious!

"Adobe didn't just buy an SEO tool – it bought a negotiating position with the AI overlords of discovery." – Juan Jacqueline and Juan unpack what "more human" marketing actually looks like when AI is mediating everything from search to Black Friday deals. They break down Adobe's acquisition of Semrush, quarterly Martech earnings, the Black Friday/Cyber Monday shift toward mobile-plus-AI shopping, BNPL's surge, and ChatGPT's three-year impact on how people search, think, and buy. Brought to you by Hightouch — the leading composable CDP and decisioning platform trusted by brands like Domino's, Chime, and Aritzia. 90% of customers have a real use case live within their first week, delivering world-class personalization at scale. Learn more at www.hightouch.com/msom. Timestamps 00:04 – MWF NYC debrief and why this year felt like a turning point for Martech 05:10 – Stranger Things and what "good" co-marketing actually looks like 10:30 – Woo-Woo vs data: how much of marketing is still intuition dressed up in dashboards 16:20 – Adobe buys Semrush: GEO data, media consolidation, and why Adobe blinked on AI search 24:40 – Quarterly Martech earnings: mid-market outpaces the enterprise and AI narratives without ROI 33:30 – BFCM early numbers: mobile-plus-AI shopping, BNPL growth, and fewer margin-killing discounts 36:56 – ChatGPT's third anniversary: national rollbacks and the societal risks of AI 42:15 – Subscriber question: How to drive change inside organizations when tooling and incentives clash? Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! https://theMartechweekly.com/podcast/question/ https://theMartechweekly.com/podcast/confession-corner/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MSoMPodcast/comments/1morng8/office_hours_questions/

"If you're not treating deliverability as revenue insurance, you're already losing money." — Matt This Hot Seat episode puts Matt McFee, an email veteran and founder of Inbox Monster, under the microscope. Jacqueline digs into how he went from Wall Street and Yahoo to co-founding BriteVerify, acquired by Validity, and why he thinks most brands are still wildly underestimating deliverability. He unpacks why inbox placement is really a revenue insurance program, not just a technical hygiene task, and why the real customer "moment of value" usually happens months after the contract is signed. Brought to you by Hightouch - the leading composable CDP and decisioning platform trusted by brands like Domino's, Chime, and Aritzia. 90% of customers have a real use case live within their first week, delivering world-class personalization at scale. Learn more at www.hightouch.com/msom. Timestamps 01:03 – What would make Martech better? 05:22 – What 25 years in email have taught him about the inbox 07:32 – Lightbulb moment that led to found BriteVerify and Inbox Monster 11:58 – AI previews, creative rendering, and why annotations actually matter 15:48 – What marketers should be paying more attention to in deliverability 19:55 – Quantifying deliverability as a revenue insurance program for stakeholders 25:02 – Opinions on industry innovation and consolidation 28:23 – What vendors can do to better help marketers Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow us on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! Questions: https://themartechweekly.com/podcast/question/ Confessions: https://www.themartechweekly.com/podcast/confession-corner/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/MSoMPodcast/comments/1morng8/office_hours_questions/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/making-sense-of-martech

"Zero party data reflects what customers say they want; first party data reveals what they actually do." – David In this Hot Seat episode, Jacqueline sits down with David Joosten, co-founder of GrowthLoop and coauthor of First-Party Data Activation, to unpack why so many brands are "doing" first-party data yet still serving generic experiences. They dig into the tension between what customers say versus how they behave, and why marketers need to reconcile that gap with experimentation, empathy, and better use of their own data. Discover why embracing AI decisioning and continuous experimentation are crucial, and learn how to navigate the ethical red lines of using first-party data and AI responsibly in marketing. A must-listen for marketers looking to future-proof their data strategy. David goes deep on why composable should be the default (not a buzzword), how to think about clean rooms without creeping out your customers, and what AI decisioning actually changes about the marketer's job. From compound growth engines and agentic workflows to team structures and org politics, this is a roadmap for leaders who want first-party data to drive real, measurable growth — not just prettier dashboards. This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our sponsor Hightouch. Looking for a smarter way to activate your customer data? Hightouch is the leading composable CDP and decisioning platform trusted by brands like Domino's, Chime, and Aritzia. 90% of customers have a real use case live within their first week, delivering world-class personalization at scale. Learn more at www.hightouch.com/msom. Timestamps 01:03 - Rapid Fire: AI generated content (Yay or Nay) and the marketing buzzword that needs to go. 02:30 - Is there ever a time to use third-party data ethically?. 03:54 - The most underrated skill for marketers today. 07:06 - Reconciling the gap between zero-party data (aspiration) and first-party data (behavior). 09:16 - The evolving role of first-party data in the next 3-5 years. 11:50 - Can clean rooms truly scale without compromising trust, and what's the next evolution of ethical data collaboration? 17:18 - What a "future-ready" Martech stack looks like in practice. 21:30 - Ethical red lines for AI: ensuring innovation respects privacy. 33:53 - The three-part advice for CMOs looking to future-proof their data strategy. Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! https://theMartechweekly.com/podcast/question/ https://theMartechweekly.com/podcast/confession-corner/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MSoMPodcast/comments/1morng8/office_hours_questions/