Every company today is in the technology business, whether they realize it or not. But here’s the nuance no one likes to say out loud: not every company knows who should be leading those technology decisions.
In boardrooms and budget meetings, it’s still common to hear phrases like, “Let’s have IT evaluate that platform,” or “We’ll let operations handle the tech piece.” That thinking made sense a decade ago when “marketing technology” meant an email system and a CRM connection. But today, technology isn’t just how we execute marketing . . . it is the marketing.
Customer data, automation, personalization, privacy, measurement – every one of these strategic levers runs through the systems we choose and how we use them. And yet, in many organizations, marketing is still the last to weigh in on the tech that most directly impacts its success.
Let’s be honest, for far too long, marketing has been seen as the department that “uses” technology, not the one that leads it.
When it comes to technology decisions, most organizations default to IT. And on the surface, that seems logical. IT manages systems, data security, and integrations. But here’s the problem: technology that isn’t chosen with marketing in mind rarely delivers the experiences that actually drive growth.
The truth is, the platforms that shape a company’s customer experience like your CRM, marketing automation, data warehouse, CDP, analytics suite, all live at the intersection of marketing strategy and technology infrastructure. And if marketing isn’t steering those choices, you’re leaving money (and insight) on the table.
I’ve spent nearly two decades working with organizations who are trying to make their technology work harder for them. What I’ve seen, time and time again, is this: when marketing takes the lead in technology decisions, everything else becomes clearer – alignment, measurement, efficiency, even customer trust (big win here).
Because when marketing leads, the business stops asking, “What can our technology do?” and starts asking, “What do our customers need?”
That’s the pivot. That’s the unlock.
This isn’t about taking power from IT, it’s about putting purpose behind every dollar you invest in your tech stack. Marketing brings the “why.” IT brings the “how.” Together, they can build systems that actually serve the people they were meant to . . . the customers.
So let’s talk about why marketing-led tech decisions aren’t just “nice to have.” They’re the difference between an organization that reacts to technology and one that uses it to grow smarter.
1. Marketing is closest to the customer experience
IT can keep the lights on, but marketing understands how customers actually feel when those lights are on.
Your marketing team sees the full picture of the buyer journey Every email opened, every landing page abandoned, every chat conversation that turned into a sale (or didn’t). Marketing knows which messages drive action, what language builds trust, and where friction kills conversion.
So when marketing is involved early in tech decisions, the tools you invest in are selected through the lens of the customer. You’re not just asking, “Does this integrate with our systems?” You’re asking, “Does this make our customers’ experience better?”
At Leadous, we’ve helped brands move from purely technical platform migrations to strategy-first transformations. That shift in thinking changes everything. Suddenly, the tech stack becomes less about functionality and more about flow – connecting what customers expect with what your systems deliver.
2. Data without strategy is just digital clutter
Most organizations don’t have a data problem . . . they have a decision problem. I know, this one hurts to read, but you need to hear the truth.
Marketers sit on a goldmine of customer data, yet too many platforms are chosen or configured without understanding what data actually needs to drive. When IT leads alone, decisions tend to center on stability, compliance, or cost. Those are valid factors, but they don’t tell you what to do with the data once it’s collected.
When marketing leads, data gets meaning. It becomes insight. The kind that powers personalization, predictive journeys, and measurable ROI.
I’ve seen it firsthand: one company had three disconnected platforms, all technically “working.” But no one could answer basic questions like, Which campaigns influenced revenue? or Where are we losing qualified leads?
Once marketing took the lead on the technology roadmap, we rebuilt their stack around outcomes: clean data, consistent naming conventions, and connected analytics. Within 90 days, their team could trace every campaign to pipeline impact. That’s the difference between “marketing ops” and marketing intelligence.
3. Marketing understands the why behind the workflow
A workflow designed by IT often works perfectly (wait for it) for IT. But if it doesn’t align with how marketing teams plan, launch, and optimize campaigns, you end up with frustration, inefficiency, and shadow systems (the dreaded “we just built our own workaround”).
When marketing drives process design, workflows mirror the reality of campaign execution. The approval paths make sense. The automation triggers align with real buyer behavior. The dashboards show metrics that actually matter.
And most importantly, it doesn’t take three teams and a week of troubleshooting to launch a simple nurture.
At Leadous, we call this operational empathy. Designing systems around how people actually work, not how we think they should. Marketing knows those nuances because we live them every day.
4. The best marketing platforms are built for collaboration, not control
Traditional tech selection often centers on control: who owns access, who maintains uptime, who approves changes. But the modern martech ecosystem thrives on collaboration.
When marketing takes the lead, we design ecosystems that invite participation – between marketing, sales, service, and even IT. Marketing-led tech decisions prioritize shared visibility and unified data, because we know siloed systems create siloed experiences.
This is especially true in enterprise environments where tools like Adobe Experience Cloud or HubSpot Marketing Hub anchor multiple departments. Marketing understands that these platforms are not just “marketing tools.” They’re customer platforms.
They orchestrate the messages, journeys, and experiences that every other department builds on. If marketing doesn’t lead their adoption and optimization, the result is a patchwork of disconnected efforts that no one truly owns.
5. ROI is easier to prove when marketing owns the tech narrative
When technology is treated as an IT expense, it’s judged by technical outcomes: uptime, user seats, API calls. But when marketing leads, success is measured in business terms: conversion rates, pipeline growth, customer retention.
That’s where true ROI lives.
Marketing can tell the story of how tech investments drive results, not just run reports on how many users logged in.
One of my favorite conversations to have with clients is when they realize that their martech stack is their revenue engine. Not a cost center. Not a “nice-to-have.” The foundation of measurable growth.
When marketers lead technology strategy, they build stacks that tell stories, ones the C-Suite actually cares about.
6. Marketing leadership bridges technology and humanity
The heart of this argument isn’t about who has admin access to Marketo or who writes SQL queries. It’s about who sees the intersection of data and emotion, the space where real connection happens.
Marketing is, and always has been, the translator between what the business offers and what the customer feels. That’s why marketing-led tech decisions matter so much: they ensure the technology you buy never forgets why it exists in the first place.
Technology without empathy is just automation. Marketing makes it experience.
The future of martech belongs to marketers who think like technologists and technologists who think like marketers.
That’s the balance we strike at Leadous every day. We live at the crossroads of marketing strategy and technology enablement. Whether we’re implementing Adobe Journey Optimizer, optimizing Marketo Engage, or helping clients migrate to a new platform, our approach is always the same: strategy first, technology second.
Because the tech stack is only as strong as the story it helps tell.
When marketing leads those conversations, we stop reacting to technology trends and start defining them.
Where to start
If you’re reading this thinking, “Our IT team would never go for that,” here’s the good news: this isn’t a turf war. It’s a partnership shift.
Start small. Invite marketing into the next platform evaluation meeting. Bring IT into your campaign reporting discussion. Use a shared vocabulary: outcomes, efficiency, customer experience.
The goal isn’t to take control away from IT; it’s to align around what technology should do: serve the customer and scale the business.
Marketing brings the context. IT brings the infrastructure. Together, they build the kind of tech ecosystems that turn campaigns into growth engines.
And that’s the case – the undeniable, data-backed, customer-centric case – for marketing-led tech decisions.
By Abbie Hill, VP of Marketing & Partnerships at Leadous
Author Bio:
Abbie Hill is the Vice President of Marketing & Partnerships at Leadous, a certified Adobe partner helping organizations unlock the full potential of their marketing automation platforms. With more than 15 years of growth marketing experience, she’s passionate about aligning technology with strategy to help businesses transform how they connect with their customers.
Follow me on LinkedIn.
