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How to Become a MarTech Expert in Your B2B Company – 10 Tips I Wish I’d Known Earlier

Is there someone in your marketing department responsible for MarTech? Do your various marketing technologies mesh like gears? If not, then in this guest article by Markus Zirkel (Blickle) you’ll get 10 tips on how to become a MarTech expert in your B2B company and get your MarTech stack running like a Swiss watch.

Markus Zirkel MatchZINE
  • Dieser Artikel wurde am 31. March 2026 aktualisiert.
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acts first: MarTech has exploded! In December 2022, the number of MarTech vendors worldwide surpassed the magic mark of 10,000. But it’s not only the number of providers in the market that has exploded—so has the number of marketing tools used within B2B companies themselves. For comparison: a study by Stackbeam from 2021 states that mid-sized companies with between 20 and 1,000 employees use an average of around 27 marketing tools. If you multiply this number by the number of mid-sized companies in Germany, you get an incredible total of more than 11.8 million marketing tools in use (and rising). Small businesses and large corporations are not even included in this calculation yet.

As a marketer, you probably know this: one tool for running campaigns (marketing automation), one tool for managing and publishing content (CMS), one tool for project management, one tool for storing customer data (CRM), a few tools for social media, and so on. If, today, you make a list in a B2B company of all the marketing technologies needed to achieve marketing goals, you end up with quite a long list depending on the size of the company. 

After I started my career in 2021, I very quickly came up against the topic of MarTech, and it was really difficult for me to get a holistic overview of the tools in my company. For this reason, I created an individual list of the technologies at Blickle Räder+Rollen GmbH & Co. KG and quickly ended up in the double digits.

The MarTech challenges in B2B companies

Almost all companies have built up a complex marketing architecture of different tools and platforms over the past decade. Retrofitting the technologies to connect them with each other now poses major challenges for B2B companies. Some tools are still in the state they were purchased in, while others have been further developed with add-ins, in-house programming, or customization options. And on top of that, from different vendors. Companies are currently faced with the challenge of translating the individual cogs into a functioning, flexible, and high-performing piece of clockwork. 

And then there’s you as the marketer: you’re already glad to be allowed to use a particular tool at all, after countless rounds of alignment have taken place, the tool’s implementation was planned for months with work packages, several PMO approval processes had to be completed, and finally the decision to use the tool was made. 

Why should your company have a MarTech ambassador right now? Why not simply continue expanding the tool landscape as before? The answer is relatively simple: the longer you wait, the more difficult it becomes to strategically connect the technologies with each other. The number of MarTech tools will continue to increase in the future as well. Scott Brinker, VP Platform Ecosystems at HubSpot and the creator of chiefmartec.com, expects a tenfold increase in MarTech by 2030. 

Let’s start together with a step-by-step guide. I’ll take you on a short MarTech journey and explain how you can gain structure and the necessary know-how to start with MarTech from scratch.

Step 1: Develop an individual MarTech strategy for your company

Marketers are often not able to give a clear answer to the question of whether they have a MarTech strategy. Yet the MarTech strategy is one of the key building blocks for the success of your marketing activities.

Be sure to avoid the mistake of letting technology drive the strategy. It has to be exactly the other way around: first develop a MarTech strategy and then use that strategy to drive the technology. I recommend working out the MarTech strategy together in close coordination with IT. The experts are very familiar with keywords such as microservices, API-first, cloud-native, headless & co. 

To keep in mind: The strategy drives the technology. 

Step 2: Gain the trust of senior management

In practice, the need for MarTech often emerges from one or more specialist teams. Unfortunately, the topic of MarTech is (still) not on the senior management agenda at enough companies. That’s why my suggestion is: use your developed MarTech strategy to gain the trust of senior management. Building a high-performing MarTech stack takes a lot of time, requires strategic direction, and must be viewed with a long-term perspective. If you have senior management on your side from the very beginning, nothing will stand in the way of your MarTech strategy. 

To keep in mind: Ultimately, senior management decides on strategy, organization, resources, and budget allocation.

Step 3: MarTech needs clear ownership within the company

If your company already has a MarTech owner, congratulations! However, this will probably (still) not be the case, because very few DACH companies currently employ a MarTech expert.  

Organizing the MarTech stack is playing an increasingly important role in B2B companies. As the link between operational and strategic marketing, MarTech ensures alignment between marketing activities and the technical infrastructure. Ideally, MarTech is managed by the Head of Marketing Operations, who equips the MarTech team with decision-making mandates and an appropriate budget. This allows the team to focus exclusively on designing the marketing infrastructure. In addition, it is crucial to build internal expertise alongside ownership. A MarTech leader must understand both the marketing perspective and the technology perspective so that they can act as a “translator” or “interpreter” between the two disciplines.

To keep in mind: MarTech is not a one-off project, but requires continuous optimization.

Mit 10 Tipps zum MarTech Experten

Step 4: Create the cultural prerequisites for MarTech

Yes, you read that right: create the cultural prerequisites for MarTech. Culture? But isn’t MarTech exclusively about technology? In my opinion, MarTech is not only about technology. That’s quite paradoxical, since the word “Tech” is already part of MarTech. For me, culture and people are the key success factors in building a high-performing and flexible MarTech stack. It is particularly helpful to bring experts from different departments together at one table to develop cross-system use cases. MarTech can’t do that on its own, which is why in practice a lot of creativity and knowledge sharing are necessary. 

Many companies make the mistake of buying expensive buzzword technology(ies) like CDP or AI and then either using the Ferrari like a VW Golf or even scrapping the technology altogether because it’s useless. To ensure that a new technology works really well in your company, you need a clear strategy, a business case, and a shared understanding among the specialist departments in advance.

To keep in mind: The culture and expertise in your company is what truly makes “Tech” successful.

Step 5: Don’t let other people or companies influence you 

Recently, I was at an industry conference and talked to a decision-maker about MarTech. The person proudly told me that they want to switch their CRM system to Salesforce next year.

The next tip is worth its weight in gold: When someone in my network tells me that they want to introduce Salesforce, Mailchimp, or tool XY, I stay completely relaxed. Your company’s business model is unique, your company’s products are unique, and your marketing messages are unique. MarTech merely maps the company’s marketing activities technically, and that’s why your company’s architecture should also be unique. 

Keep in mind: Your friend, neighbor, or competitor doesn’t know the individual conditions of your MarTech stack.

Step 6: Create a blueprint for the marketing infrastructure

First of all, in practice I would always start by mapping out the current state (AS-IS). Make sure to consider all stakeholders involved, processes, tools, and data flows in your B2B company. Once you have created an inventory of all marketing technologies used in your company, you will find redundancies pretty quickly. This is usually because some tools overlap in terms of certain functionalities (such as tracking). 

Following the AS-IS state, you can think about what you envision for the target state (TO-BE). Typical questions include: What is the strategy for building the MarTech architecture? What specific steps does the initiative include? What do you expect MarTech to look like for your company? What could a MarTech governance system look like (ownership, access to tools, security, data quality, data protection, etc.)? 

Keep in mind: Take enough time to develop the blueprint. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Step 7: Define and select key data and KPIs

Once the AS-IS and TO-BE states have been defined, you can start defining key data and KPIs together with the stakeholders. Ideally, this step is carried out across teams and independent of any specific system.

Examples of key data include: CRM ID, tracking ID, email address, classification, and much more.

Examples of KPIs include: conversion rate, customer lifetime value (CLV), marketing ROI, number of leads generated per channel, and much more.

Mit 10 Tipps zum MarTech Experten

Step 8: Create the foundation for a plug & play architecture

For a long time, the two strategies best-of-breed (the best solution) vs. all-in-one suite (complete solution) have been discussed in B2B companies. Both strategies have far-reaching advantages and disadvantages in practice. In the future, however, a third strategy in particular will become more important: 

In 2019, Scott Brinker showed with what he called the second age of MarTech that the two strategies best-of-breed and all-in-one suite are things of the past, and that instead, platform ecosystems in the cloud will be what matters. 

The founder of MartechTribe, Frans Riemersma, is also focusing on a best-of-integration strategy in MarTech instead of best-of-breed vs. all-in-one suite. In a talk, he recommended that companies use a plug & play MarTech architecture to integrate individual tools quickly, easily, and reliably. 

When building an individual MarTech architecture in a B2B company, it’s easy to lose track amid all the technical terms and buzzwords. It can therefore be worthwhile to work with a MarTech agency that helps you create a high-performing, customized infrastructure for your requirements. 

Keep in mind: connect, integrate, and get started!

Step 9: You don’t necessarily have to simplify the MarTech stack; you need to ensure good integration

I have often heard the rumor that MarTech stacks need to be “simplified.” Yes and no!

A MarTech stack should be as simple and efficient as possible. However, a number of tools are necessary to execute your marketing activities – and that’s a good thing. If you consolidate the MarTech stack, you run the risk of eliminating system-critical functionalities or parts of processes. As described in step 8, rely on good integration and focus on organic growth of the MarTech stack.

Step 10: Focus on a small number of tools

Now that strategy, accountability, culture, and the current/target state analysis are clear, you can focus on technology. Finally! 

But be careful: as a marketer, you certainly know the “shiny-sparkly-technology syndrome.” What does that mean? In practice, as a marketer you’d ideally like to unlock all the features of a tool right away, test them, and get started. My recommendation: start small, repeat the methods, develop the functionalities, and only buy tools when you absolutely need them. Otherwise, you’ll unnecessarily complicate your MarTech stack. 

Still, besides your “core tools,” you should also leave a bit of room for new experiments. Especially given rising customer expectations and technological development, it’s worth trying out new tools on the market. But don’t forget to quickly get rid of failed experiments and old tools. 

When you look at the interactive version of the MarTech map with over 10,000 vendors, you’ll notice that the marketing tools have been divided into six top-level categories: Advertising & Promotion, Content & Experience, Social & Relationships, Commmerce & Sales, Data, and Management. Within these six top-level categories, there are a total of 50 (!) subcategories. The bottom line: as a B2B company, you can’t cover every area—and that’s perfectly fine. Concentrate your efforts on a small selection of tools, and master them!

Keep in mind: Find the right balance between existing and new technology.

🤝Let’s connect on LinkedIn

Do you have suggestions or questions about my ten tips? Or have you perhaps had completely different experiences? I’d be happy to exchange ideas with you via LinkedIn. I look forward to your connection request!

You can find me on LinkedIn here
Picture of Markus Zirkel
Markus Zirkel

Markus Zirkel is Project Manager Digital Customer Insights at Blickle Räder+Rollen GmbH & Co. KG. He is looking for cultural and technical ways to connect the worlds of IT, marketing, and sales. By centralizing customer data and breaking down data silos, he improves decision-making processes in the individual business units. With a focus on B2B, his experience lies particularly in the areas of lead management, MarTech, data culture, and digital transformation.

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