I recently attended and spoke at the MOps-Apalooza conference from the marketingops.com community. This post covers the session I attended on the second day of the event. It is a roundup of the LinkedIn posts I made about each session or panel. Unfortunately, I could not be in two places at once, so there were additional amazing sessions not covered in this blog. Find the blog about Day 1 here.
The Future of Marketing Operations: Rethinking Marketing Operations for 2025 from Darrell Alfonso
We’re not just operations, we’re the business’ cross-functional masterminds.
Darrell Alfonso discussed this in ‘The Future of Marketing Operations: Rethinking Marketing Operations for 2025’ at the beginning of Day 2 of MOps-Apalooza.
The jobs of marketing operations will look completely different in the next few years. What does it mean to rethink something or look at something differently?
Darrell told a story about rethinking during his career.
Long ago, he thought if people would just leave him alone and not distract him, he could get a lot of work done that would make an impact.
Which led to feedback about not being collaborative.
Rethinking those 'distractions' of requests, he approached them with a mindset of ‘Thanks for reaching out. Who else would you reach out to? Luckily I am an expert who can solve your problem.’
Then the new feedback was about his team being so good that other leaders asked for his team’s help, he was invited to strategic meetings, and people were asking to give his team more resources.
5 things to rethink for the future of marketing operations:
- We’re not just operations teams, we’re operations consultants. Use the consultancy skill of structured and rigorous thinking to solve problems in marketing ops, such as Darrell’s 7 P’s framework: planning, PMO, prioritization, partnerships, performance, platform, and people in the middle of it all.
- We’re not just operations, we’re the new product leaders. Look at product management career paths: As roles progress upward, ambiguity and levels of uncertainty in the problems you’re solving will grow (and hopefully, salary grows), and you should ask what’s possible instead of asking for requirements. Make big bets about the future.
- We’re not just operations, we’re today’s 10x engineers. This was a popular term to describe people who could problem-solve quickly, ship work in days not months, and were worth 10 people. One person was making an outsized impact. AI can make that impact possible now so marketers of the future can focus on the ‘next best action.’ Another way to make an outsized impact is by empowering others instead of doing it all yourself as one person.
- We’re not just operations anymore, we’re the new business owners. Think about: What data and information would you review if you owned many businesses? Are you getting a return on investment in your work?
- We’re not just operations, we’re the business’ cross-functional masterminds. Darrell talked about how in Ocean’s 11 heist movies, they do something new and seemingly impossible by hiring the best of the best for each skill, sitting around a table, and contributing to the solution. Not asking them to ‘open a ticket and find out if it works in 7-10 days.’ Don’t form plans in a silo. Come together cross-functionally to solve meaningful problems faster.
Thank you for an insightful session, Darrell!
Translating Geek Speak To C-Suite from Jess Kao
Jessica Kao gave a session about ‘Translating Geek Speak To C-Suite’ on Day 2 of MOps-Apalooza.
Aspirational goals of marketing operations:
- Being a strategic partner to the CMO
- Earning a seat at the leadership table
- Viewed as delivering business value
- Appreciated and readily funded/resourced
You know you’re winning when your work is represented on the board slides.
Jessica presented helpful charts that translate ‘geek speak’ to business outcomes to CMO speak in three columns. The CMO will have to translate the value of projects to the CEO, so help them out by focusing on business outcomes. A few examples are below.
5 guiding principles for success (to get to the above goals!):
- Focus on business outcomes, such as better revenue predictability, higher returns, and greater revenue efficiency. Example translation: instead of talking about standardizing job level pick lists on forms, discuss how that will provide personalized digital experiences and meet our customers where they are
- Connect what you do to your CMO’s OKRs (objective and key results). Provide context on marketing ops initiatives and connect them to the revenue funnel, for more efficient revenue creation. Example: instead of revamping lead scoring, talk about how you will deliver higher quality leads to SDRs improving SDR efficiency. Be comfortable swagging.
- Always show progress. The tech stack will always be broken in some way; accept it. With an average 18-month tenure of a CMO, what projects will be fundable in that amount of time? Progress is fundable. 10% improvement is better than 5%. ‘The tech stack is broken’ is not fundable. Show the quarters on a roadmap with a certain % of progress filled out for each initiative.
- Showcase your data-driven insights. Interpret the numbers and tell them what to do next. Add a “what does this mean” part of each slide reporting numbers. Be a tour guide of the data.
- Earn the trust of your CMO with the 4 C’s: Commitment to business objectives, Caring about CMO goals, Consistent progress toward the goals, Competence in speaking about your work’s relevance to the company
Thank you for another inspiring and helpful session, Jess!
Operationalizing a Composable Architecture from Sam Liss
Organizations pursuing a composable systems architecture approach will generate 30% more revenue.
Sam Liss talked about this in the ‘Operationalizing a Composable Architecture’ session at MOps-Apalooza, expanding on last year’s conference hot topic.
Types of system architectures:
- Monolithic – systems are tightly coupled and dependent on each other’s integrations, working as one unit.
- Microservice – systems are independent, not integrated, and responsible for specific tasks.
- Composable - multiple pieces of various systems are interdependent, tightly integrated, and interchangeable.
Shifting to composable architecture moves towards a centralized pool of technology that can be leveraged by multiple business units as a global internal service.
How architecture impacts teams:
For the first two types: Once you have an architecture in place, your teams adapt to it. Over time, a team’s technology becomes tightly coupled with business functions. Their roadmaps may start to reflect their vendor product roadmaps rather than internal creative thinking.
What happens when marketers don't have to spend time fixing tools and data all day?
It might be scary at first, but you have time for strategic work, a shorter backlog, and less stress.
Sam talked through an example of launching a campaign, with and without composable architecture.
With composable architecture = fewer data issues, fewer possible errors, fewer steps, less time to launch...only good surprises.
Without it = more steps to launch, more pain points that lead teams to try a lot of different tech to solve... lots of not-fun surprises!! And stress!
Steps to evolve to composable operations:
- Technical design, such as choosing composable elements, migration road mapping, and centralizing tech teams.
- Hybrid transition, including strategic prioritizing conversations between marketing and tech teams, talking to each other more. Roles and skillsets start to shift.
- Fully composable, where revenue and technical teams share a program cadence and divide themselves into cross-functional skillset pods
One of the questions from the audience:
If you are currently siloed, where do you start, centralizing the teams or the tools?
It can be easier to educate teams on the benefits of centralizing once the tech is in place and they can see it working. If you start with the tech, who owns that project? Find an executive who sees the value of it and can be the cheerleader for it to the entire company.
Thank you, Sam, for a very educational session!
"If You Build It, They Won't Come": Boosting Dashboard Adoption for Better Engagement and Impact from Grant Grigorian
Grant Grigorian spoke about ‘"If You Build It, They Won't Come": Boosting Dashboard Adoption for Better Engagement and Impact’ at MOps-Apalooza.
The top reasons why dashboards fail to be adopted by users:
- Lack of alignment with business objectives
- Lack of business context
- Complexity or irrelevance to the end users
- Not enough training and a lack of data literacy
- The belief that internal data is inaccurate
- Lack of a communication or follow-up plan
- Cultural resistance
To overcome these points of failure, use the Design Thinking Dashboarding Process, which flows in a circle:
- Empathize (addresses the first two fail bullets)
- Define (addresses bullets 3&4)
- Ideate (addresses bullets 1-4)
- Prototype (addresses bullets 1-4)
- Test (addresses bullets 1-4)
- Implement (addresses bullet 5)
- Deliver (addresses bullets 6&7)
- Iterate (addresses bullets 6&7)
Many great techniques were shared for each step of the design process, including data stories, “Show me what you do now,” “MAD Libs” KPI Extractor, truth anchors, and more.
Takeaways
- Pay attention to what users actually want to do with dashboards, and when they want to do it
- Design the dashboards to eliminate confusion and increase usability
- Deliver insights and recommendations to users on a regular basis using the dashboards to showcase the usefulness of the dashboards
Thank you for a useful session, Grant!
Martech Reimagined from Scott Brinker
Marketing operations people are the people at the intersection of tech and business. We are the bridge builders between worlds, with an ability to understand the BS on both sides.
Scott Brinker talked about this and how the audience was his people in the ‘Martech Reimagined‘ closing keynote at MOps-Apalooza.
In a session filled with excellent charts, graphs, and other infographics, Scott led us through the findings from recent surveys and reports.
A few of the topics:
In a chart showing the long tail of software, that tail of specialized products has less than 100 of each type of software (competitors), but this type of software makes up 50% of most company Martech stacks. There is a lot of change in this section of software as well, with people testing new tools for short periods of time.
The most replaced applications are marketing automation, email distribution, CRMs, and CDPs.
The most important software buying factors from over 50% of respondents:
- Cost
- Integration capabilities
- Customer experience
On average, a company with 501-2,500 employees adds 6.2 new SaaS apps every 30 days.
Digital marketing is cheaper to test than physical marketing. Similarly, now we’re seeing even more democratization from no code and AI that accelerates the amount of experimentation possible.
We’re seeing a rise in custom software, a decrease in commercial software, and an emphasis on composability (which Sam Liss spoke about in a dedicated session). The spectrum of composability is shifting with AI to enable non-technical users.
Martech stacks have multiple platforms, but usually one is at the center (Choose your favorite 3-letter acronym):
For B2B, the center is usually MAP or CRM.
B2C’s majority is CDP/CDW.
70% of people surveyed integrate with a cloud data warehouse.
82% of people substitute features offered in that central system with other software due to functionality, economics, user experience, governance, and more. The more composable your stack is, the greater the benefits of the above 4 factors.
Consumers’ top CX frustrations include long wait times at #1.
AI agents can help… but only if they’re good since the #2 response is ‘automated responses are unhelpful.’
I especially enjoyed the chart in the photo that shows the efficiency of the company vs the efficiency of the customer (don’t fall into the crap at speed and scale category!)
Scott ended the talk with Martec’s law: technological change is much faster than the organization's change speed, which is the quintessential management challenge of the 21st century. So be strategic about which changes you pursue.
Thank you for a data-and-insights-packed session, Scott!
From Chaos to Clarity: Process Mapping for Effective RevOps Technology Management from Christine Selvaggio
“No one wants to document but I’ve seen it solve a problem by itself that would’ve taken months to solve otherwise.”
Christine Selvaggio talked about this at the end of the MOps-Apalooza session, ‘From Chaos to Clarity: Process Mapping for Effective RevOps Technology Management.’
Session highlights:
The goal of process mapping is that anyone from any part of the organization can easily understand and follow (even the most complex of processes) from start to finish.
Process mapping goals: 🗺️
- Ease of Explanation
- Compliance
- Integration Resource
- Training
- Application Inventory Support
- Optimization Opportunity
Things to consider when starting:
- Complex processes will involve asking lots of questions
- Mapping involves many teams/stakeholders
- It can impact revenue
- It will take longer if you have no existing documentation 📝
Examples of processes to map:
- Lead intake into marketing automation/CRM
- Marketing to sale handoff
- Application inventory (My note: A spreadsheet is a good first step, then consider MoPros friends MartechGuru 😀 )
Steps:
- Audit the current state of the process first
- Document the technology involved in the process
- Create the visual map in the tool of your choice
- Based on your findings, build a roadmap that translates findings into recommendations and next steps for optimization. (The future state)
Relate the first map to a problem in the company that comes up a lot, or something the stakeholders care about. Document that first to get buy-in for mapping other processes.
When processes are different depending on who completes the process, mapping could be a helpful team exercise to agree on a consistent way to do it.
Thank you, Christine, for this session (and for the fun Schitt’s Creek memes)!
MOPs: From Rescue Crew to Revenue Architects of Demand Gen from Vladlena Mitskaniouk
Vladlena Mitskaniouk talked about this in ‘MOPs: From Rescue Crew to Revenue Architects of Demand Gen‘ at MOps-Apalooza.
Session highlights:
The common state of marketing ops:
- Volume over impact: Celebrating increased Leads & MQLs without real revenue growth
- Reactive over strategic: Last-minute tool acquisitions & urgent program fixes
- Process over buyers: Systems that prioritize internal processes over buyer experience
The true cost of marketing operations being reactive:
- Short term: Missed deadlines, Hasty rollouts, Technical debt
- Medium-term: Low revenue opportunities, Poor data quality, Inefficient processes
- Long-term: Diminished strategic influence, Missed strategic opportunities, Team resource drain
Transformative Framework:
Change:
- From database growth to revenue-driving (from volume to impact. Don’t fall into the volume trap!)
- From reactive implementation to strategic partnership and proactive guidance
- From internal-first-process-driven systems to experience-first buyer-driven systems
For strategic partnerships, ask people not what they need, but why they need it. The strategic partnership will get your team early involvement in issues or plans, cross-functional alignment, and shared metrics with those teams.
Lesson 1: Catching a fire before it starts
Pay attention to where decisions are happening, such as important meetings and planning time. There was a great chart of where to listen to catch a fire before it starts, what to listen for, and how to respond to get ahead of it.
Lesson 2: Don’t just identify problems, quantify their impact
Speak the language of impact (also an entire session topic from Jessica Kao). Dont just explain the technical info, talk about business impact.
Lesson 3: Attribution should measure impact, not just influence
The intersection of what the data tells us, what sales says, and what buyers say.
Lesson 4: Tools should map to your buyer experience and strategic needs.
Lesson 5: What works for one company or audience could harm buyer perception elsewhere
Buyer-first operations, such as zero-click social content and self-serve demos, will result in fewer leads/MQLs, but each lead will be more likely to convert faster. Prepare the C-suite for this so it’s not a surprise.
Small wins to drive change:
- Question one lead-oriented program, team, or marketing goal
- Review a recent deal beyond traditional model approaches, actually talk with the seller
- Attend a strategic planning meeting
- Map where decisions are made and identify opportunities for earlier involvement
- Create a roles and responsibilities chart across MOPs/Sales Ops/RevOps and look for opportunities for better collaboration
- Advocate for one improvement in buyer experience, try the mystery shopper approach
- Identify and propose the removal of one outdated process or tool
Thank you, Vladlena! I admired your excellent visuals in the presentation, too!
