Interactive planning tool
MarTech stack readiness assessment
Answer nine practical questions about strategy, tools, data, ownership, purchasing, and measurement. You will receive a transparent path and prioritized recommendations—not a vendor pitch.
None of the information or answers you enter is recorded, stored, or used. This tool exists only to help professionals plan their MarTech stack.
What is a MarTech stack assessment?
A MarTech stack assessment is a structured check of whether an organization has the evidence to make its next marketing technology decision — buy, replace, consolidate, or leave alone. It looks past the tools to what decides whether a tool will work: defined outcomes, a known current state, governed data, an operating model, a disciplined buying process, and a way to measure value.
This one is a nine-question self-assessment. One question sets your primary goal; the other eight score six dimensions. It takes about five minutes, runs entirely in your browser, and returns a recommended planning phase with prioritized actions. It is the quick read that comes before a full audit, not a replacement for one: an audit inventories every tool, contract, and data flow, and this tells you which of those to look at first.
The six dimensions it scores
Each dimension is one reason stack decisions go wrong. The statements under “strong evidence” are the top answer for each question — what a team scoring 100% on that dimension can show.
Strategy and use cases
Without a written outcome, requirements become a feature wishlist and the vendor with the best demo ends up writing the strategy.
- Scored by: How clearly are business outcomes and MarTech use cases defined?
Strong evidence: Outcomes, baselines, use cases, owners, constraints, and sequencing are documented.
Stack visibility
Most apparent capability gaps turn out to be adoption, configuration, or overlap problems. You cannot tell which without knowing what you already own and how it is used.
- Scored by: How complete is your current-stack inventory?
Strong evidence: A verified current-state map is reviewed regularly. - Scored by: How do you evaluate adoption, overlap, and tool value?
Strong evidence: Every material tool has an evidence-backed action. - In the glossary: MarTech stack
Data and integration
A new platform inherits every unresolved identity, consent, and integration problem upstream of it. A connector that exists but is not monitored fails silently.
- Scored by: How clearly are customer data, identity, consent, and systems of record defined?
Strong evidence: Authoritative systems, identity, consent, quality, retention, and access are governed. - Scored by: How operationally reliable are your important integrations?
Strong evidence: Direction, latency, validation, retry, reconciliation, and failure ownership are tested. - In the glossary: Authoritative system, Identity resolution, Consent management platform, iPaaS
Operating model
A product nobody owns becomes shelfware or a fragile dependency, however well it fits on paper.
- Scored by: How mature is the stack operating model?
Strong evidence: A cross-functional operating model is active and reviewed. - In the glossary: Data governance
Investment discipline
Demos reward presentation. What decides the outcome is tested fit, three-year cost including internal labor, and whether you can leave.
- Scored by: How disciplined is your vendor and investment evaluation?
Strong evidence: The decision uses testable requirements, evidence levels, proof of value, three-year TCO, and exit criteria. - In the glossary: Composable architecture
Measurement and value
A launch and a rising activity count are operating facts, not value. Without a baseline, nobody can say later whether the stack paid for itself.
- Scored by: How will you know the stack is creating value?
Strong evidence: A balanced value framework is reviewed and used for decisions. - In the glossary: Measurement plan, Attribution
How the scoring works
- Each of the eight scored answers is worth 0 to 3 points. The primary-goal question is not scored; it chooses the starter use case shown with your results.
- A dimension’s points become a percentage of its maximum. Stack visibility and data each draw on two questions, the other four dimensions on one.
- Overall readiness is the plain average of the six percentages, so every dimension weighs the same.
- The recommended phase comes from walking the phases in order — Align, Audit, Architect, Select, Operate — and stopping at the first whose dimension is below 70%. Architect covers both data and operating model. If nothing is below 70%, the phase is Operate.
- Recommendations are ranked from your lowest dimension upward. Below 50% a dimension gets the foundational recommendation, 50–79% the strengthening one, and 80% or more the one about keeping it that way.
The overall score also places you in one of five bands:
| Overall score | Band |
|---|---|
| 0–29 | Clarify and stabilize — The stack decision is ahead of the evidence. Focus on outcomes, visibility, and foundations before adding technology. |
| 30–49 | Audit and design — Important building blocks exist, but gaps in the current state or target design could make a purchase premature. |
| 50–69 | Build the operating foundation — The direction is credible. Strengthen data, ownership, and operating readiness so selected capabilities can be adopted. |
| 70–84 | Evaluate with evidence — The organization is positioned for structured evaluation, provided the lowest-scoring dimensions are addressed in the decision plan. |
| 85–100 | Scale and optimize — The core planning evidence is strong. Concentrate on measured value, governance quality, and continuous rationalization. |
A worked example
Consider a team shopping for a customer data platform. Its outcome and use cases are written down, owners and all. But it has a contract list rather than an operational inventory, knows about some tool overlap without measuring it, has mapped its key data flows but not who owns a failed sync, runs the stack informally, chooses vendors from demos, and tracks channel activity rather than value.
| Dimension | Score |
|---|---|
| Strategy and use cases | 100% |
| Stack visibility | 33% |
| Data and integration | 50% |
| Operating model | 33% |
| Investment discipline | 0% |
| Measurement and value | 33% |
Overall readiness: 42/100 — Audit and design. Recommended next phase: 02 Audit.
Investment discipline is the weakest dimension at 0%, so it heads the recommendation list. The recommended phase is still Audit, not Select: phases are evaluated in order, and stack visibility, at 33%, is the first one below 70%. A sharper vendor scorecard will not help a team that cannot yet tell a missing capability from an unused one. The ranking says what is weakest; the phase says what to do next. Run the audit first, and fix the buying process before the next signature.
What it does not do
- It does not recommend vendors or products, and no vendor pays to appear in it.
- It is not a maturity certification or a benchmark. Nine questions are coarse by design: the assessment points to where to look, and the audit tells you what is there.
- It does not record anything. Scoring runs in your browser, and a share link carries the answers after the # in the URL, the part browsers never send to a server.
- It is not legal, security, or procurement approval.
Frequently asked questions
How long does the MarTech stack assessment take?
About five minutes: nine multiple-choice questions, one per screen, with the results on the same page.
Are my answers stored anywhere?
No. Scoring runs in your browser and nothing is sent to a server. If you copy a share link, the answers travel inside the link itself, after the # sign, which browsers never include in a request.
Why is my recommended phase different from my weakest dimension?
The phase follows planning order, not the lowest score. If strategy is below 70%, the phase is Align even when another dimension is lower, because every later decision depends on knowing the outcome. The recommendation list is ranked by score, so it still shows your weakest dimension first.
How is this different from a MarTech audit?
An audit inventories every tool, contract, owner, data flow, and renewal date, and takes weeks. This assessment takes five minutes and tells you which part of the audit matters most for your next decision. If stack visibility scores below 70%, the audit is your recommended next phase.
How often should I retake it?
Before any major buying decision, and otherwise as often as you review the stack — quarterly suits most teams. Keep the share link each time and you have a record of how the evidence moved.
Can an AI agent run the assessment?
Yes, in browsers that support WebMCP, currently Chrome’s early preview. The page registers two read-only tools: one lists the questions and their allowed answers, the other returns the same scores and recommendations a person sees.
Where to go next
- How to plan a MarTech stack before buying tools — The full five-phase method the assessment is built on; every recommendation links to its phase.
- MarTech audit checklist and stack inventory template — The next step when stack visibility scores low: the audit itself, with a downloadable inventory.
- MarTech glossary — Practitioner definitions for the terms used in the questions, each with what to watch for in vendor claims.
- CDP vs. CRM vs. marketing automation — Which system should own which job — the question behind the data dimension.
- Marketing automation planning template — For when the next step is a specific program rather than the stack.