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How to Audit Your Martech Stack Without Going Crazy

Picture of Stijn Toonen By  Stijn Toonen  ·  3 minute read

If you’re a CMO or Head of Marketing, this will sound familiar: your martech stack started with a clear purpose. But over time, it’s morphed into a Frankenstein-like system of disconnected tools, quick fixes, and dusty subscriptions. Tools were added reactively—someone in sales needed a plugin, growth wanted a shiny new platform, and customer success had a favourite dashboard. Meanwhile, the original architecture got lost.

A regular martech audit isn’t a luxury—it’s essential. It can help you cut costs, simplify workflows, improve integrations, and increase your team’s effectiveness. The catch? It often feels like a massive undertaking. Let’s change that. Here’s a structured approach that keeps you sane and gets real results.

1. Start with the right mindset: it’s not just a tool list

One of marketers' most prominent mistakes is treating a martech audit like a checklist. “We use these 18 tools. Done.” But that tells you nothing about how those tools contribute to your goals.

A real audit asks more profound questions:

  • Why are we using this?

  • What value does it provide?

  • Does it support our strategic objectives?

Your martech stack is more than software—it’s the backbone of your marketing operations. Approach it like a system, not a shopping list.

2. Centralise your stack overview: tools, access, ownership

Before you can evaluate anything, you need visibility. Build a simple but detailed inventory. For each tool, capture:

  • Tool name

  • What it does

  • Who uses it

  • Who owns it

  • Cost (monthly/annually)

  • How it integrates with other tools

It’s not glamorous work, but it’s mission-critical. Without this overview, you’re flying blind. With it, you’ve got a solid foundation for every subsequent decision.

3. Evaluate each tool: value vs. complexity

Now, go through the list and score each tool:

  • Is it actively used?

  • Is it critical to any key processes?

  • Does it overlap with other tools?

  • If it overlaps, why are you keeping it instead of consolidating? What’s the unique value it offers?

  • Does it benefit multiple teams?

  • Are the integrations stable and functional?

It’s common to find overlapping functionality—two tools that handle email, lead forms, or reporting. That’s not always bad, but you need a clear justification. Maybe one tool handles transactional emails while the other is for campaigns. That’s fine—as long as it’s intentional, not accidental.

4. Step back: Does your architecture still make sense?

It’s time to zoom out. A strong stack is more than the sum of its parts. Ask yourself:

  • Are your tools well integrated?

  • Do you have a central source of truth for your data (like a CRM or CDP)?

  • Are there manual steps that should be automated?

  • Are you using three tools for email, two for lead forms, and no one owns the connections?

  • Can every customer data field only be changed in one place? You're inviting chaos if two tools can edit the same field without syncing. Every field should have a single source of truth.

If you can’t sketch a clear diagram of your flow from campaign to conversion, something’s off.

5. Ask the hard strategic questions

This step separates a tactical cleanup from a strategic reset. Ask yourself:

  • What are our marketing goals for the next 12–24 months?

  • Is our stack aligned with those ambitions?

  • Do we use tools because they’re valuable, or because we have to?

  • Can we trust our data?

  • Are there tools that frustrate or slow down our team?

Honest answers here will show you where your stack is holding you back.

6. Take action: consolidate, upgrade, or retrain

Now you’ve got the insights. Time to do something with them:

  • Consolidate: remove tools you don’t need

  • Upgrade: replace limited tools with better alternatives

  • Retrain: help your team get more out of what you already have

  • Redesign workflows: Now that you know what’s possible, rethink your process

This isn’t about having the perfect stack. It’s about having one that works for your current and future needs.

Conclusion: A good audit is a marketing necessity

You don’t need to be a technical architect to understand your martech stack. You need to take a good, honest look at it.

With a structured approach and the right questions, you can make confident decisions, reduce complexity, and set your marketing team up for success.

Need help with your martech audit? I help marketing teams gain clarity, make smart choices, and build stacks that actually support their strategy. Fill in the form below—I'd be happy to help.

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