Fintech Magazine July 2026 | Page 97

MARKETING EVOLUTION

“ This is ultimately a data infrastructure problem. It’ s not a model problem”

Stephen Williams CEO Marketing Evolution
changing dramatically month to month. MMMs eventually picked up on those shifts, but often after the fact.
A more dynamic intelligence layer – one operating on a weekly or even daily cadence – can move with the business in real time. It can identify those shifts as they’ re happening and help organisations respond faster and with more confidence.
That’ s really the broader shift happening right now. Historically, the martech stack has been made up of systems like CDPs, CRMs, DAMs, MAPs and measurement solutions – all serving different operational functions. Increasingly, though, organisations need an intelligence layer sitting across those systems that can make the data usable for AI, simulation, optimisation and decision – making. That’ s where the industry is heading.
Q. HOW SHOULD BRANDS BE THINKING ABOUT BUILDING THEIR MARTECH STACK TODAY?

» In my mind, the martech stack today needs to start with understanding what data sources and systems you already have – whether that’ s a CDP, a CRM system, DSPs or anything else relevant to your brand – and making sure those systems can work together rather than operate independently. Traditionally, we’ ve thought about the martech stack as a layered stack. Increasingly, though, I think it looks more like a spoke – and – wheel model, where you have a central data and intelligence layer feeding decision – making across the business.

That hub interacts in both directions with systems like the CDP. It’ s taking data out of the CDP, but it’ s also feeding information back into it to help better understand customer behaviour and what’ s happening across the broader ecosystem.
As far as measurement goes, I think we’ re now in a world where measurement can move as fast as the data itself. We don’ t have to rely only on MMMs anymore. MMMs still have a place and can be useful when looking across longer time horizons, but marketers need to make decisions rapidly – sometimes even daily – and that’ s where a more nimble measurement system becomes important.
So for me, the modern martech stack is centred around a unified data layer capable of supporting rapid measurement, optimisation, simulation and decision – making, while still interacting cleanly with the surrounding systems across the business. fintechmagazine. com 97