Why audit your marketing stack

An average mid-market marketing team uses more than 20 tools. Half are paid for, signed off years ago, used twice a quarter. This 10-question audit looks for the things that drain stacks: tool overlap, integration debt and manual handoffs that should be automated.

Five minutes, real score (0–100), three concrete moves at the end.

The 10 areas it covers

  • Team size. Calibrates stack complexity against the team that operates it.
  • Tool count. The first bloat indicator. More is not better.
  • Tool integration. Whether tools talk to each other or live in silos held together by spreadsheet.
  • Nurturing process. Whether you have automated flows or you nurture by hand.
  • Customer journey. Whether you have it mapped end to end or you trust things just happen.
  • Marketing-sales alignment. Whether they share data, criteria and handoffs, or argue in every meeting.
  • First-party data. Whether you collect, clean and activate it, or depend on third parties.
  • CDP. Whether you have a real data layer or each tool invents its own "single customer".
  • Predictive analytics. Whether you do predictive and advanced segmentation, or only descriptive dashboards.
  • Tool categories in use. Measures dispersion: covering many categories shallowly versus going focused.

The 4 maturity levels (0–100)

Your final cumulative score classifies you into one of four levels. Each with a clear profile:

  • Beginner (0–24). Minimal stack, mostly manual. Huge upside with small focused investment.
  • Emerging (25–49). Some pieces connected, much potential untapped. Focus: integration before more tools.
  • Mature (50–74). Functional stack. Focus: optimise, prune, go deeper on data and attribution.
  • Advanced (75–100). Composed stack, live data, serious automation. Focus: continuous experimentation and keeping technical debt in check.

When this audit is most useful

  • After a renewal cycle, to cut tools nobody uses.
  • Before a CDP or MAP migration, to size the real scope.
  • When a new CMO or Head of Growth lands and needs a clean inheritance.
  • When your team says "we have all the tools, why is nothing working".

Common questions

How long does it take?

Five minutes. Ten questions with multiple choice and numeric quantification.

Do I need to know all my tools in detail?

No. Questions are operational and process-based. If unsure about a data point, answer what you know.

Will I get tool recommendations?

Not exactly. You get move recommendations: integrate, prune, automate, before touching new purchases.

Does it cover B2B and B2C?

Yes. Questions are agnostic to business model.