Marketing stack consolidation

Consolidate a marketing stack when a tool can be removed or combined without weakening necessary work, and the change produces a worthwhile reduction in cost or operating effort. Start with a proposed workflow change, not a target number of subscriptions.

Define the proposed change

Name the tool that might leave, the tool that would take over its work and the teams affected. Record three possible decisions: consolidate, retain both for distinct jobs, or defer while a specific gap is checked. Similar feature names alone do not establish that one route can replace another.

For the proposed replacement, describe the task from its starting information to its final result. Include ordinary users, approvals, exceptions and the receiving team. Confirm that the destination supports the task under the organisation's actual plan, permissions and configuration. If an administrator must take over work that a marketer performs today, count that as part of the change.

Pros and Cons of Consolidating CRM and Marketing Automation Tools

Account for everything the old tool does

List scheduled work, templates, reports, records, connected systems and customer statuses that depend on the tool. Give each necessary item a destination, an archive route or an explicit reason to retain access. An export file does not prove that the destination can restore the workflow or its history.

Ask the owners of connected systems to identify transfers and credentials that depend on the old route. Agree how corrections and opt-outs will reach every system that acts on them. Where personal information is involved, have the organisation's privacy owner assess the proposed use and disclosure. Moving a record does not authorise a new use.

Include any applicable direct-marketing privacy requirements in the privacy owner's assessment of the proposed route.

Put benefit and effort on one timeline

Use the signed agreements and proposed offer to establish when each old charge can stop, when a new charge begins and how long both systems must run. Show external migration costs, internal hours and ongoing administration separately. Include any extra seats, capacity or integration service required by the destination.

Compare the proposed route with keeping the current one over the same period. Treat a saving that depends on an unconfirmed contract change or uninspected export as conditional. The decision should state the earliest realistic saving date and the uncertainty that could change the result.

Marketing Stack Consolidation Timeline: Key Milestones and Effort

Apply a direct-marketing privacy gate

Before approving a change that affects customer communications, identify whether the workflow uses or discloses personal information to communicate directly with an individual to promote goods or services. The OAIC's APP 7 guidance says an organisation must not use or disclose personal information it holds for direct marketing unless an exception applies.

Where permitted, it must allow an individual to opt out and comply with the request. On request, it must also provide the source of an individual's personal information unless doing so is impracticable or unreasonable.

For non-sensitive information collected directly from an individual, one exception depends on whether the individual would reasonably expect the information to be used for direct marketing. Other exceptions cover information obtained from a third party, or collected directly without that reasonable expectation; these circumstances bring additional requirements to make the individual aware of their right to opt out.

Do not assume the same exception applies to sensitive information or to an organisation acting as a contracted service provider for a Commonwealth contract: APP 7 identifies separate exceptions for those circumstances. If the relevant basis for the proposed use or disclosure is unclear, keep the change conditional while the privacy owner checks it.

Cut over and check the result

Move one bounded workflow first. Write the expected result for an ordinary case and a consequential exception, then have the relevant users check the proposed route before live work changes. Set a cutover point for scheduled actions so both systems do not act on the same item. Keep an owner for the old route until outstanding work, records and dependencies are accounted for.

After cutover, compare like work with a pre-change baseline. Check completion time, hand-offs, manual repairs, failed transfers, ownership of exceptions and supplier charges that actually ended. Keep output quality alongside speed: a faster send is no improvement if an approval or customer-status check is weaker. If work has merely moved into spreadsheets or troubleshooting, revise the route before calling the stack simpler.