At a Glance: How to Build a Stack That Serves Your Strategy

  • Start with strategy — build your stack around funnel stages and goals
  • Audit your tools by function, usage, and value
  • Don’t just integrate tools — orchestrate the full experience
  • Stack size ≠ stack success. Strategy alignment is everything
  • Always design backward from the outcomes that matter most

Let’s face it: building a modern MarTech stack can feel like chasing a moving target. The options are endless, the buzzwords keep changing, and before you know it, you’re paying for tools no one’s using.

So how do you avoid the trap of stacking for the sake of it? By leading with strategy — and letting your customer journey define what you actually need.

Part of the Series: Strategy Before Stack

This blog is part of our Strategy Before Stack series – a 3-part exploration of how real marketing impact starts with clarity, not complexity. With MarTech stacks growing faster than the teams using them, it’s time to flip the script: strategy first, tools second. This series unpacks the common pitfalls of tech-led decision-making and how to build smarter, more aligned ecosystems.

Explore the full series:

Marketing Is MarTech Now: Why Strategy Must Lead the Stack
A wake-up call for marketers chasing tools without a clear plan — and why your strategy, not your software, drives meaningful results.

Stack With Purpose: How to Prioritise Strategy When Building Your MarTech Ecosystem
A practical guide to aligning your tech investments with business outcomes, team capabilities, and future adaptability.

Fix the Foundation: Why Most MarTech Fails Are Strategy and Alignment Gaps, Not Tech Problems
A closer look at why misalignment — not bad tools — is the real cause of underperforming stacks, and how to fix it from the ground up.

The Stack Is Not the Strategy

Let’s be honest — building a MarTech stack can feel a lot like shopping for kitchen gadgets. Everything promises to make your life easier. Every platform claims it’s “mission-critical.” And before you know it, you’ve got 15 tools, overlapping features, half a dozen free trials… and not a single consistent flow in your marketing engine.

This is what happens when the stack leads the strategy — instead of the other way around.

A powerful MarTech ecosystem isn’t about having the most tools. It’s about having the right tools, in the right order, for the right reasons. That starts with clarity on your strategy.

From Tech-First to Strategy-First Thinking

Most tech-first stack decisions sound like this:

  • “We need a CRM because everyone has one.”
  • “Let’s get a CDP — our competitor just added one.”
  • “We need attribution software ASAP.”
  • “Can we try AI for content?”

These are all valid tools. But without strategic context, they’re just line items in a budget.

Strategy-first questions sound different:

  • “Where are leads dropping off in our funnel?”
  • “How do we shorten our sales cycle?”
  • “Which segments are we failing to nurture properly?”
  • “How can we scale without doubling our team?”

These are problems worth solving. The stack should be built in service of these answers — not in pursuit of buzzwords.

A Simple Framework: Stack by Funnel, Not by Hype

Here’s how we guide teams at Hyperlytics to prioritise their MarTech stack — using their own customer funnel as the blueprint.

1. Awareness → Get Seen by the Right People

MarTech to support:

  • Ad platforms with AI targeting
  • Social media scheduling & analytics
  • Programmatic ad tech

Strategy lens: Who do we want to reach, and how do we know they’re a good fit?

2. Consideration → Engage and Nurture Meaningfully

MarTech to support:

  • Marketing automation
  • Personalised CMS content
  • Lead magnets & gated content tools

Strategy lens: What’s stopping qualified visitors from moving forward?

3. Decision → Convert with Confidence

MarTech to support:

  • CRM & pipeline tools
  • Lead scoring & routing
  • Chatbots / product demos / trial flows

Strategy lens: How do we make it easy for a prospect to say yes?

4. Retention & Expansion → Keep and Grow Customers

MarTech to support:

  • Customer data platform (CDP)
  • Loyalty programme tech
  • Predictive churn analytics

Strategy lens: What makes someone stick around, and how do we encourage upsell?

Stack Audit Tip: Map Tools to Jobs

Before adding anything new, audit what you already have. Ask: What job does this tool do — and is that job still relevant?

Create a simple table with these columns:

  • Tool name
  • Primary function
  • Funnel stage
  • Strategic value (High/Medium/Low)
  • Adoption (Are we actually using it?)
  • Owner (Who’s responsible?)

You’ll likely spot some underperformers, duplicates, or tools that were solving a problem you no longer have.

This isn’t about tech cuts for the sake of it — it’s about alignment.

Don’t Just Integrate — Orchestrate

Stack decisions aren’t just about plug-and-play connections. It’s not enough that your CRM “talks” to your email platform if no one’s using that data to drive actions.

True orchestration means:

  • You know how data flows across tools
  • Teams understand what each tool is for
  • The stack reflects your actual workflows, not a vendor’s pitch deck

At Hyperlytics, we often redesign stacks to be leaner but more impactful — because when each tool has a clear role, the overall ecosystem is smarter, not just bigger.

When to Add New Tools (and When to Wait)

Sometimes, a new platform is the answer. But here’s a quick gut check before buying:

  • Is there a clear strategic problem it solves?
  • Can we measure its impact (or model its ROI)?
  • Do we have the people/process to implement it properly?
  • Does it duplicate functionality we already own?

If the answer to any of those is unclear — hit pause.

A bad-fit tool won’t just waste money. It can distract your team from the actual work of growth.

The Hyperlytics POV: Design Backward From Outcomes

Every time we build or rework a client’s stack, we start with one question: “What outcome do you want to drive?”

That might be:

  • Reducing CAC by 20%
  • Improving MQL-to-SQL conversion
  • Creating a self-serve sales flow
  • Increasing customer retention or upsell

Only once that’s clear do we move into stack planning — identifying what data, workflows, automation and analytics are needed to support that goal.

This approach results in leaner, higher-ROI stacks — and much better team alignment, too.

Final Thought: Tools Don’t Build Growth — Strategy Does

We love MarTech. But we love strategy more.

Because no matter how good your tools are, they can’t fix fuzzy goals or disconnected journeys. Your stack should be the engine, not the driver. Let your strategy take the wheel.

Before your next MarTech purchase, take a breath and ask:  Does this help us build a stack with purpose?

Next in Series:

Fix the Foundation

Even the smartest stack can underperform if your team, data, and workflows aren’t aligned. In the final post of the series, we unpack why most MarTech failures are really strategy failures — and how to spot and fix the hidden alignment gaps that silently kill ROI.