Financial

Services
Marketing
Tech Stack
Workbook
B2B Technology Marketing Tech Stack Workbook

Introduction //
Modern buyers’ expectations of marketing have never been higher - and doubly so
when it involves finances.The martech stack is increasingly integral to financial service
marketers’ success, providing the necessary tools to deliver the personalized, data-
driven marketing that powers 21st-century buyer journeys.

It’s never been more important for marketers to have the right tools at their disposal,
and with the number of martech solution providers now well into the thousands, finding
that right mix has never been more complex. We designed this workbook to help you
find yours.

Visibility is critical to understanding what tools you have available, how well they suit
your needs, and what functional gaps you may have. In this workbook, we’ll take a
deep dive into several types of martech stack diagrams that help you gain insight into
your stack, how to build one for your own stack, and how to use it after it’s completed.

How to Use This Book

This workbook is not intended to tell you what tools you need, or which brands to buy. Every
marketing organization is unique, and there’s no right answer for every company. The intention
of this book is to give your team tools to evaluate your martech stack from multiple angles, and
determine what the right choices are for your business goals.

Each section will include a worksheet with instructions for building the diagram for your current
tech stack. You may also find it useful to print a second version of the worksheet to build a
diagram for your ideal tech stack, and then compare the two.

Before we get started on building our diagrams, we have three exercises to go through that will
make everything else easier later.

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B2B Technology Marketing Tech Stack Workbook

Exercise 1: Current Elements

First, use Exercise 1 to write out everything that’s currently
in your martech stack, what it’s used for, and any current
integrations that are vital to your workflow.

Element Function Integrations

For example:

Element Function Integrations

Marketo Marketing automation, email Salesforce, Showpad

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B2B Technology Marketing Tech Stack Workbook

Exercise 2: The Customer Journey

Next, use Exercise 2 to create a concise snapshot of your customer journey. If you don’t have a
customer journey mapped yet, you can use our Customer Journey Starter Kit to get things going.

For example:

Stage What is the customer thinking? Explanation

Attract Navigating the financial The customer has identified

markets is complex. I need a problem they have and

an expert's advice on how to recognized that a professional

manage my investments. advisor is the best solution.

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B2B Technology
Customer Journey
Marketing
Worksheet
Tech Stack Workbook

Explanation
What is the customer thinking?
Stage

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B2B Technology Marketing Tech Stack Workbook

Exercise 3: Sales Funnel Stages

Finally, write out the stages of your company’s specific sales funnel, and how you define them
internally. For some companies this may be relatively simple, for others - especially in
complex B2B financial markets - it may be much more involved.

For example:

Stage Pipeline Activity Internal Exit Criteria

Objectives

Awareness Prospecting Initial phone Advisor speaks to prospect

call about their situation and
determines what product
would be best fit.

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B2B Technology
Sales Funnel Stages
Marketing
Worksheet
Tech Stack Workbook

Explanation
Internal Objectives
Pipeline
Activity
Stage

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B2B Technology Marketing Tech Stack Workbook

The System Map

The System Map offers two main insights: how your tech tools support your sales funnel, and which
functions your tools are concentrated in. This diagram shows which parts of your martech stack are
used at what funnel stage, and groups them by category. Here’s a simple, generic example, using the
traditional awareness-consideration-purchase construction.

Awareness Consideration Purchase

Outreach & Ad Platform

Evangelism
Social

Content & CMS

Engagement
CMP
Conversion
Marketing Automation

Measurement CRM
&
Management Web Analytics
Optimization
Attribution
Marketing Analytics
Marketing Intelligence

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B2B Technology Marketing Tech Stack Workbook

How to Build Yours

What you’ll need
Exercise 1 (stack elements)
Exercise 3 (sales funnel stages)
Systems Map Worksheet (Page 12)

Take the Systems Diagram Worksheet and

fill out the X axis with the sales stages
from Exercise 3.

Sales Stage 1 Sales Stage 2 Sales Stage 3

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B2B Technology Marketing Tech Stack Workbook

Now take a look at Exercise 1. If you were to divide your stack into 3-5 functional categories, what
would they be? You can see that in our sample diagram, we chose Outreach & Evangelism, Content &
Engagement, and Measurement & Management. You can use these same categories if they apply to your
business, or choose a different set that works better for you. When you have your categories, add them to
the Y axis. Be sure to space them out so that you’ll have plenty of room to add your stack elements.

Sales Stage 1 Sales Stage 2 Sales Stage 3 Sales Stage 4

Category 1

Category 2

Category 3

Category 4

Now that you have your frame set up, it’s time to start adding the tools in your martech stack. Leave some
room between them - you’ll be adding a bit more information later.

Sales Stage 1 Sales Stage 2

Category 1 Tool 1

Tool 2

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B2B Technology Marketing Tech Stack Workbook

When you have all of your tech stack tools filled in, go through each one and list out what your team uses
it for at each point that it touches the sales cycle. Next to those uses, mark whether you’re satisfied or
dissatisfied with the tool’s performance for that task.

Sales Stage 1 Sales Stage 2

Task 1 ✓
Task 2 ✗
Category 1 Tool 1
Task 1 ✓
Task 2 ✗
Tool 2

You now have a comprehensive, visual collection of what is in your tech stack, what it’s used for, and how
effective it is at those uses.

What to Do with it Now

The System Map is especially helpful for realizing if you have any duplication or functional gaps in
your martech stack. It’s also useful for evaluating what you do have - if any of your tools has a lot of
dissatisfaction marks, you’ll probably want to reevaluate its use case, and explore alternatives.

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B2B Technology
System Map Worksheet
Marketing Tech Stack Workbook

Category 2

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B2B Technology Marketing Tech Stack Workbook

The Experience Map

If the System Map is about your tech stack and your sales cycle, the Experience Map is about your tech
stack and your customer’s journey. This diagram will help us examine which tools are used at what points
to help your customers move forward, and what their functions are.

Here’s a generic example of a simple experience map. Notice how the tools are still grouped by function,
but from a different angle. The System Map functional groups are what your organization uses the tools
for, whereas the Experience Map functional groups are how the tools interact with the customer. It’s a
subtle difference, but it speaks to the purpose of the Experience Map: examining your martech capabilities
from your customer’s point of view.

Ad
Platform Social CMP DAM Attribution
Customer realizes
they have a problem

Customer realizes the CMS CRM

product category
can help them
Marketing Web
Customer zeroes in Automation Analytics
on what kind of
product they need

Customer is ready
to buy the product

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B2B Technology Marketing Tech Stack Workbook

How to Build Yours

What you’ll need
Exercise 1 (stack elements)
Exercise 2 (customer journey stages)
Experience Map Worksheet Worksheet (Page 18)

On the Experience Map worksheet, first

fill out the leftmost column with the
customer journey stages you put together
on Exercise 2.

Customer realizes they have a problem

Customer realizes the product

category can help them

Customer zeroes in on what

kind of product they need

Customer is ready to buy the product

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B2B Technology Marketing Tech Stack Workbook

Next fill in the names of tools you use in your

martech stack, and mark on the line which parts
of the journey they support. Try to keep tools with
related functions near each other.

Tool 1 Tool 2 Tool 3

Customer realizes they have a problem

Customer realizes the product

category can help them

Customer zeroes in on what

kind of product they need

Customer is ready to buy the product

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B2B Technology Marketing Tech Stack Workbook

Next, add your functional categories to the top of

the chart, and indicate which tools fall into them.

Function for Customer

Ad
Platform Social
Customer realizes
they have a problem

Customer realizes the product

category can help them

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B2B Technology Marketing Tech Stack Workbook

Now that you have your structure built out, go back and list what your tool does at each of the stages it
touches. Next to each activity, mark if the tool is meeting your needs or not.

Function for Customer

Ad
Platform Social
Customer realizes
they have a problem Activity 1 ✓ Activity 1 ✓
Activity 2 ✗ Activity 2 ✗

Activity 1 ✓ Activity 1 ✓
Customer realizes the product
Activity 2 ✓ Activity 2 ✓
category can help them Activity 3 ✗ Activity 3 ✗

You now have a map of how your martech stack informs your customer’s experience during their buying journey.

What to Do with it Now

Since it’s focused through the lens of your customer’s journey and interactions, the Experience Map is a great
tool for marketers adopting a Customer Experience (CX)-oriented approach. You can use your Experience
Map to examine your current customer touchpoints, and evaluate if your existing tools are able to effectively
support a CX-focused marketing strategy.

If your organization is already using CX marketing, the Experience Map can be helpful for examining your
overall effectiveness. An underperforming tool may correspond to a drop-off point in your buyers’ journeys.

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B2B Technology
Experience Map Marketing
WorksheetTech Stack Workbook

Category 2

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B2B Technology Marketing Tech Stack Workbook

The Workflow Map

The previous two maps focused on how your martech stack interacts with and supports external
marketing, from two different perspectives. The workflow map, on the other hand, focuses on the role
of your martech in how your team works.

In this basic example, we see a marketing team’s workflow divided into four large categories.

Planning Executing Delivering Measuring

a Campaign the Plan the Content the Results

Marketing Intelligence CMP Ad Platform Marketing Intelligence

CRM Collaboration Social Marketing Analytics
CMP Compliance CMS Web Analysis
DAM Optimization
Conversion Attribution
Marketing Automation

Mapping your own workflow might require fewer or more categories. We recommend against getting
too specific, however. If you break every task in your workflow into a separate category, your map can
quickly become overly complex and difficult to use.

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B2B Technology Marketing Tech Stack Workbook

How to Build Yours

What you’ll need
Exercise 1 (stack elements)
Workflow Map Worksheet (Page 18)

The first step is to decide on the workflow stages that

best describe how your team works. Write these at
the top of the worksheet boxes.

Work Stage 1 Work Stage 2

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B2B Technology Marketing Tech Stack Workbook

Work Stage 1 Once you have your stages listed, break

out the tasks that your team carries out as
part of that stage. Again, beware of being
Task Description overly specific. Unless two similar activities
are carried out very differently, you can use
a single general task to represent them (i.e.
“Create nurture emails” instead of listing each
campaign).

Task Description

Work Stage 2
Task Description

Beneath each task, list the tools your team

Tool Used ✓
uses to accomplish it. Make a note if you’re Tool Used ✗
getting what you need or not - especially if you
have multiple tools for the same task.
Task Description
You now have a single-page view into your
team’s work process, and how it interacts with
your technology. Tool Used ✓
Tool Used ✗

What to Do with it Now

The most obvious use for the Workflow Map is uncovering duplication - it should be pretty
straightforward to spot multiple tools with the same function. Likewise, the Workflow Map makes
it easy to spot gaps in functionality, where your team has to accomplish a task but doesn’t have
the tools to help.

A more indirect application for the Workflow Map is to help find inefficiencies in the team’s
processes themselves. Now that you have the entire workflow in front of you, are there aspects
that seem unnecessary, or tasks that could be automated?

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B2B Technology Marketing Tech Stack Workbook

The Data Flow Map

While the Workflow Map plots out how your team works with tech tools, the Data Flow map
explores how your tech tools work with each other. The purpose of this diagram is to get an at-a-
glance look at how information moves between the different elements of your martech stack, and
why.

A very simple Data Flow map can just show which of your systems are connected:

CRM Automation Web Analytics

Contact Data Nurture Campaigns Website Performance
Sales Records Email Campaigns SEO Performance
Customer Records Lead Campaigns

Mktg Performance CMP Mktg Analytics

Mgmt Campaign Planning Campaign Tracking
Budget Planning Content Calendar Performance
Forecasting Asset Management Dashboards
Actuals

Sales Compliance
Enablement Software
Collateral Compliance Review
Sales Tools Legal Approvals
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 B2B Technology Marketing Tech Stack Workbook

This can be helpful for getting a general idea of which tools are central to your workflow. The real
power of the Data Flow Map, however, is in seeing what all that shared data actually is. For that,
we need to go a layer deeper.

CRM Automation Web Traffic Performance Web Analytics

Lead & Conversion Records
Contact Data Contact Data Nurture Campaigns Website Performance
Sales Records Lead Details Email Campaigns SEO Performance
Customer Records Lead Campaigns Templates Assets
Templated Emails
Campaign Data Web Traffic
Performance

Mktg Performance CMP Mktg Analytics

Mgmt Campaign Budget Campaign
Campaign Planning Data
Campaign Tracking
Budget Planning Campaign Data
Content Calendar Performance
Forecasting
Actuals Asset Management Dashboards
Finalized Assets Advertising claims
Asset Data Usage Marketing language

Sales Compliance
Enablement Compliance Review
Collateral Legal Approvals
Sales Tools

Data Flow Maps can be one of the most complicated stack diagrams to make. They can also
sometimes be difficult to create without cross-functional help, particularly from IT. The benefits
are frequently worth the effort, however - particularly if you’re considering overhauling multiple
elements of your martech stack and need to see how all the pieces fit together.

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B2B Technology Marketing Tech Stack Workbook

How to Build Yours

What you’ll need
Exercise 1 (stack elements)
Data Flow Map Worksheet (Page 28)
Optional: IT Support

To start, draw a box on the Data Flow Worksheet grid for each tool that you listed in Exercise 1.
Be sure to leave a good amount of space between boxes. We’ll be adding a lot of information
later.

Tool Tool

Tool

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B2B Technology Marketing Tech Stack Workbook

Next, add a description to each box of what your team uses

the tool for. You want to add enough information to create a
useful overview, but not so much that the map gets bogged
down. General bullet points are fine here.

Tool Tool
Usage Description Usage Description
Usage Description Usage Description

Tool
Usage Description
Usage Description

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B2B Technology Marketing Tech Stack Workbook

Now that you have your tools and their functions listed out, we want to show how they work together.
Draw arrows to show when data from one system is used in another. Ideally this data transfer would all
be automated, but if you have any transfers that aren’t - i.e, workflows where your team members have to
manually add data from one system into another - be sure to indicate that next to your connecting arrow.

Tool Tool
Usage Description Usage Description
Usage Description Usage Description

Tool Manual
Usage Description
Usage Description

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B2B Technology Marketing Tech Stack Workbook

Finally, add the specific data that is shared between each tool.

Tool Tool
Usage Description Shared Data Usage Description
Usage Description Usage Description

Shared
Data Shared
Data

Tool Manual
Usage Description
Usage Description

You now have a diagram of how data passes throughout your martech stack.

What to Do with it Now

The Data Flow map is invaluable for teams who are considering changing elements of their tech stack,
as it allows you to see what integrations you currently have and what capabilities any new solution
would need to provide. Since you’ve marked any data transfer that is currently done manually, you can
also see opportunities to add automation solutions to streamline your processes.

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B2B Technology
Data Flow Map Worksheet
Marketing Tech Stack Workbook

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B2B Technology Marketing Tech Stack Workbook

Wrapping up + CTA
You now have the tools to holistically examine your martech stack,

and evaluate how well your team is equipped to meet business

objectives. As needs change, you can periodically repeat this

exercise to stay on top of your marketing organization’s technology

requirements. With the right tools to support your strategy, the how

is taken care of, and your team is free to focus on the what.

Percolate is the Content Marketing Platform for the Enterprise.

Our technology helps the world’s largest and fastest-growing brands

at every step of the marketing process.

Let us help you unlock your potential. Contact

learn@percolate.com for more information,

or learn more at percolate.com.

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