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CMOs love to talk about all the amazing answers they’re getting from data, especially when data insights lead to better campaign engagement and return on marketing investments. But what if the questions change? 

A sudden shock to the supply chain or a spike in regional virus cases will force marketers to ask different questions about, say, future product demand. There needs to be flexibility in the types of questions that business people can ask as circumstances change. Data, analytics and insights systems have to be adaptable and agile enough to evolve with the times.

Marketers need to constantly test data systems to see if they can handle new types of questions, new data sources, new MarTech. Ask yourself:

• Can the system accept different data while still producing fast outputs?
• Are data insights highly accessible? 
• Can the system be easily expanded? 
• Can different people access data and insights at different times? For instance, data insights might have been only sent to certain marketing teams but now need to go to a sales function.

Nearly half of top-performing data marketers (48%) say their data systems are very adaptable and agile in answering future critical business questions, compared to 9% of bottom performers, according to CMO Council’s newest report The High-Velocity Data Marketer. Clearly, adaptability and agility are hallmarks of good data marketing.

Related: Check out our newest report The High-Velocity Data Marketer

But what does this really mean? 

The ability to evolve the data system depends largely on the MarTech stack. MarTech and data systems go hand in hand. The CMO Council found that the top MarTech investment priority this year concerns analytics, insights and intelligence. None of these happen without access to data.

“You can’t talk MarTech without talking data integration,” says Brooke Forbes, CIO at Fidelity Investments, in the CMO Council report Making MarTech Pay Off.

A good MarTech stack is architected with adaptability and agility in mind. As the MarTech stack expands in unforeseen directions, the stack needs to be able to integrate new parts and new data sources with relative ease. If you’ve got a Frankenstack, you’re really stuck.

When it comes to creating adaptable and agile data systems, CMOs need to work closely with people like Forbes. The CMO Council report found that CMOs in very effective relationships with CIOs are closely aligned with integration to core systems, data security and privacy, speed and frequency of data transfers, and access to enterprise data stores.

Beyond the nuts and bolts of technology, CMOs strongly aligned with CIOs have the largest MarTech stacks and spend the highest percentage of their marketing budget on MarTech. The reason is obvious: High-performing MarTech warrants more investment. The ability to be adaptable and agile depends on having enough resources to expand the system. 

It should also come as no surprise that CMOs who have high-performing MarTech and data systems have earned a mountain of credibility in the enterprise. These CMOs often go beyond marketing and take on critical roles, such as leading digital transformation and customer experience and driving revenue growth.

It appears that an evolved data system helps the CMO evolve, too.

Related: Get ahead of the disruption! Become a CMO Council Member today!