---
title: Marketing Stack
date: 2026-03-13T20:05:00+01:00
author: Daniel Rico
canonical_url: "https://www.takefortytwo.com/en/tools/marketing-stack/"
section: Pages
---
## 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.