Is Marketing Ops... Marketing?

LinkedIn has been buzzing when it comes to Marketing Operations.  Is it Marketing, was asked, and the internet blew up!  

Some say “Yes!” and will claim that if Marketing Operations does not report into the marketing organization and have deep knowledge of “marketing things” then it will not be effective.  They also will point out the pitfalls of Marketing Operations moving out of Marketing and into Revenue Operations, or worse – Business Systems, and transitioning to an order taker for Sales Operations.  

However, others say “No!” and will talk to the convergence in systems and processes currently happening in the Go-To-Market (GTM) orgs of a company, the need for an independent GTM operations function, and the greater good of unity among the GTM Operations functions that must coordinate to orchestrate the transformation of interest to revenue within an organization.  

If you’re reading this blog, I’m certain the question on your mind is “well, what do you think about this topic? 

As with many of our engagements, the answer isn’t simple because there is nuance to this question and the question about “what is Marketing Operations?” presents a tension. 

Here is the tension:

Yes.  We are Marketing.  Here is a LinkedIn post that explains this position.  

Marketing Operations, by its nature, has to be intimate with the marketing function in order to fulfill our charter, which is operationalizing the execution of marketing, measuring its success in fulfilling its charter, and informing marketing strategy based on data-based insights.  Ultimately, Marketing Operations as a strategic function ultimately serves as the Chief of Staff to the CMO.  This is a high calling and can’t simply be diluted down to be a technical service organization. 

There is a catch, however, and it has to do with the evolution of the role of the marketing organization within companies. 

Note that I am choosing my words carefully.  I didn’t mean marketing, but what organizations have defined for themselves as their “marketing organization.”  

To fulfill the charter of Marketing Operations, as a whole of how the marketing strategy is performing, which I believe includes ALL of the Marketing 4 P’s (Product, Place, Price, Promotion), we have to in today’s organization structures be cross-functional because the marketing organization doesn’t “own” the 4 P’s… in most cases, they only own “Promotion.”  As a result, Marketing Operations joins in with this siloing of the 4 P’s and gets involved solely with promotional campaign creation, execution, and measurement, but it can be somewhat distanced from strategy.  

Meanwhile, there are converging forces that are bringing the 4 P’s and the need for alignment across these back into focus.

1. Product-Led Growth (Product).  Product-Led Growth is not a new fad.  It’s always been in place, but technology has enabled a greater emphasis on the use of data and the use of “free” products to drive revenue growth.  This new trend is restoring the need to understand product/market fit and leverage product usage and engagement data to drive revenue growth.  This requires that data from inside the product be accessible by marketing processes and workflows to engage people who are showing high-intent product usage (in the case of trials) and low-intent product usage or non-usage (in the case of upsell, renewals, and churn mitigation). 
2. Focus on Profitability (Price).  “Growth at all costs” has limits, and in a recessed economy the focus of many companies has shifted to proving profitability.  Ultimately, marketing ops should be focused not just on revenue, but on profitable revenue.  For marketing operations professionals, this can include understanding the optimal ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment) ratios for the marketing mix, assisting pricing teams with understanding how the pricing strategy impacts deal velocity and lead conversion to bookings (especially if your company posts pricing on the website) and lower discounts.
3. AI Content (Promotion):  We have a lot to offer in regards to how marketing messaging is resonating with an audience given the measurement tools we own, manage, and use. The adoption of “GPT” (Generative AI) features in marketing has created a need for marketers to understand how messages and prompt-driven messages are either helping or hurting buyer engagement.  As the process and data leads of marketing, we should step in and provide leadership on effectiveness and best practices.  
4. The customer journey is more complex than we think (Place):  Eventually, most successful companies will get acquired or will acquire affinity products to their brand, which inevitably creates an environment where the customer journey has to consider a person’s relationship with multiple products, and how they engage with them.  Additionally, with more channels available in the customer journey (email, SMS, “dark web,” in-app messaging, in-person and digital events, and a partridge in a pear tree), we have to not only think about relevance to a person’s customer/buyer/user status, but also to “how do they best want to be communicated with?”  This requires more data, more tools, and also a more complex consent framework.  All of these things need people that understand process, systems, and people to manage.  

Many of these items may sit outside your “Marketing” organization, which has a bias toward Promotion (messaging, conversion, lead/demand generation), but definitely impact the way that the market perceives and reacts to your brand (which is classical marketing).  We have to be cross-functional now, because the modern marketing organization in B2B doesn’t necessarily own all of these things, but they are critical to having marketing excellence in your organization. 

One thing that was said at the recent Mopsapalooza event that I believe resonated with the audience is that “Marketing Operations is not JUST marketing.”  This is a pithy way of encapsulating this blog, so I’m going to use that phrase.  Do we need to be marketers and think like marketers?  Yes!  I would say so in the classical sense, not necessarily in the modern sense.  We aren’t copywriters or graphic designers or brand strategists, but we absolutely need to know those things. 

However, to fully fulfill our mandates, we must become cross-functional consultants to our organizations.  I would call this “Revenue Operations” and we should reclaim that title from the Sales Analysts.  We need to step outside of the traditional demand generation empowerment and measurement role if we are to do this, so based on that the claim that we ARE Marketing, in today’s context, would not be fair and would be very limiting to the value we provide.

Wherever we sit, which I would argue should either be as reporting to the CMO or the VP of Revenue Operations (there are pros and cons to each), we have to swim outside of the traditional lanes and be these consultants, and the seats we occupy should be empowered to this end.  This is why I would have concerns if the role reported up to IT or to Business Systems, even though a professional who can elevate him/herself above the seat can create value from those seats.  

This is the larger contribution to the debate.  May it continue to occur because it makes the Marketing Operations community stronger.