Marchitecture: Planning for Integrations and The Technology Stack

This post is part 4 of 11 in our series on setting your marketing up for scale. Our Gold Standard framework for marketing automation defines foundational processes and deliverables focused on strategic marketing, technical operations and campaign services. Read other articles in our Do More With Less marketing automation blog series.

The previous post in our Gold Standard series discussed marketing tactics. Reflected as channels, they influence all other areas of Marketo such as lead sourcing, lead scoring, prospect lifecycle and reporting. In conjunction with defining the different types of Marketing efforts and their translation into channels and tags, identifying where Marketo fits in the sphere of technology platforms and its integration and data flow between them all is key to crafting an intelligent set of rules to execute the rest of the Gold Standard components. This article discusses how clearly defined marchitecture—a portmanteau of marketing and architecture—can support better, more strategic digital marketing.

Illustration of a marketing technology stack, with logos of marketing technologies grouped by category
A marketing architecture diagram, also known as a marchitecture or martech diagram, delivers a visual summary of the tools in an organization’s marketing technology stack. Each tool in the martech stack diagram should support a specific part of the organization’s overall marketing strategy.

The Digital Pi services, strategy, and development teams will begin a series of steps to identify and classify all other platforms in your marketing technology stack. This exercise results in a strong understanding of the marchitecture landscape surrounding the Marketo and CRM platforms, which in turn enables the Digital Pi consultants to account for any and all data flows, points of insertion, and corner cases to ensure an infallible configuration. As a bonus, you’ll receive a graphic listing and categorizing the technologies in your stack plus a thorough diagram of data flow into and out of Marketo, the CRM, and any integrated technologies that need to be considered for elements such as lead capture and prospect lifecycle milestones.

A data flow diagram that shows how data flows between marketing technology systems based on user engagement
A data flow diagram illustrates the paths along which data flows between systems in an organization’s martech stack. Many times, this data flow is triggered by user interaction and engagement.

Being prepared for and accounting for any unexpected unknowns early in the process results in a more efficient and better-informed Gold Standard configuration. While it is impossible to intimately know the thousands of technologies that exist, the Digital Pi team is well versed in the Marchitecture sphere and understands the importance of evaluating the big picture and Marketo’s role and place within the technology stack in order to configure a tailored implementation.

The next step in the Gold Standard project is to identify and define a clean, finite set of data standards in order to eliminate leads slipping through the cracks and sales missing out on viable opportunities. Stay tuned for the next blog in the series to learn more about how Digital Pi approaches Data Management and ensuring consistent and standardized data values for optimal functionality and reporting.

Eager to learn more best practices for your marketing automation platform? Check out our Gold Standard process, or contact us at hello@digitalpi.com.

Your marketing technology experts.

At Digital Pi, we use technology to connect revenue to marketing efforts. We fuse marketing strategies, processes, data and applications to make marketing technology solutions work for clients' businesses.

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