Making Sense of Martech

Juan Mendoza + Jacqueline Freedman
  • 5.0 (3)
  • MARKETING
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Unfiltered takes on the biggest shifts in marketing technology. We spotlight what matters, who's leading (or lagging), and what's next. In Martech, clarity is power — and we're here to deliver it.

  1. Dirty Data, AI Everywhere, & ROI Nowhere

    6D AGO

    Dirty Data, AI Everywhere, & ROI Nowhere

    In this Office Hours episode, Jacqueline and Juan unpack why marketing technology feels simultaneously stable and deeply uncertain. Q4 earnings show revenue holding steady, yet the market is re-pricing everything around one question: when does AI translate into real revenue? As AI roadmaps stretch into long-term infrastructure bets, pressure to monetize now is exposing the gap between AI adoption and measurable ROI.   They also examine the identity crisis around "platform" positioning and customer data platforms (CDPs), where many vendors claim ecosystem status but operate as point solutions. Increasingly, leverage belongs to companies that own high-quality customer data, not just strong product narratives.   From there, they tackle enterprise marketing's biggest challenge: data fragmentation. With few organizations achieving a true Customer 360 view, they break down why the problem persists and what it takes to build disciplined, commercially grounded data practices instead of buying another dream. Timestamps 03:49 — The "mirage" quarter: revenue stability vs strategic risk 05:38 — AI doesn't always equal value, and monetization is the bottleneck 06:33 — Category identity crisis: "platform" branding vs point solutions 10:20 — Gartner's CDP Magic Quadrant: hype, churn, and composability confusion 17:56 — The cost of data fragmentation 25:43 — The "Jenga tower" of org complexity and how stacks collapse 45:54 — The playbook: define customer data ideals and don't let vendors drive Sponsor Brought to you by Hightouch — Went all-in on a big marketing suite but still struggling to get value? You're not alone. Our sponsor, Hightouch, spoke with 50+ enterprise teams and found 79% are frustrated by high costs, slow innovation, and rising complexity, often needing specialized teams just to keep things running. They'll share the full findings in a live webinar on February 12, plus what they're seeing from organizations updating their Martech stacks. Get the report and register! Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! Always feel free to email us at podcast@themartechweekly.com. Questions Confessions Reddit

    53 min
  2. Confessions of an Email Provocateur with Dela Quist

    FEB 4

    Confessions of an Email Provocateur with Dela Quist

    Why impressions — not clicks — reveal email's real power, and who's quietly profiting from your inbox.   Email is still treated like a messaging channel, and that mistake is quietly destroying value. In this episode, Jacqueline sits down with Dela to challenge the default rules of email marketing and reframe the inbox as what it actually is: owned media and intent infrastructure. Nearly every sacred KPI is put on trial, including opens, clicks, suppression, and frequency caps, and replaced with a media-first lens focused on reach, impressions, and long-term behavior.   Dela breaks down why email only feels "free" because you are the product, how Gmail captures behavioral data at a massive scale, and why unopened and even archived emails still drive search, site visits, and revenue weeks later. The takeaway is blunt. Brands overpay for paid media while underusing the cheapest, most measurable audience they already own.   Sponsor Brought to you by Hightouch — Went all-in on a big marketing suite but still struggling to get value? You're not alone. Our sponsor, Hightouch, spoke with 50+ enterprise teams and found 79% are frustrated by high costs, slow innovation, and rising complexity, often needing specialized teams just to keep things running. They'll share the full findings in a live webinar on February 12, plus what they're seeing from organizations updating their Martech stacks. Get the report and register!   Timestamps 00:55 — The lie at the center of email marketing 08:55 — Gmail didn't give you free email:  it took your data 12:10 — How unopened emails still create intent and sales 18:20 — Advertising works even when attribution fails 29:10 — Why "inactive" subscribers are your most valuable audience 43:05 — Your list is a legal right, not a platform asset     Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! Always feel free to email us at podcast@themartechweekly.com. Questions Confessions Reddit

    1h 40m
  3. Pilots to Proof: AI Agents in the Enterprise with Keanu Taylor

    JAN 28

    Pilots to Proof: AI Agents in the Enterprise with Keanu Taylor

    Pilots to Proof: AI Agents in the Enterprise with Keanu Taylor   AI agents are being positioned as the answer to shrinking budgets and rising expectations, but most enterprise teams are still stuck in pilot mode.    In this Office Hours episode, Jacqueline is joined by guest host and industry analyst Keanu Taylor to examine what's actually working inside large organizations. Drawing on insights from his research, the conversation explores why many "AI strategies" amount to fragmented experiments, and what it really takes to move from internal pilots to external decisioning. Instead of chasing one all-powerful agent, leading teams are breaking work into hierarchies of specialized micro-agents, backed by better data context and governance.   ROI shows up in unexpected ways: efficiency gains often unlock deeper strategic insight rather than just cost savings. And none of it works without adoption, which means real hand-holding, expectation management, and treating data governance as infrastructure, not a meeting-room exercise. Timestamps 00:04 - Introducing Keanu Taylor and the marketing technology shift  01:42 - What 13 enterprise consumer brands are testing with AI agents 02:56 - Navigating the era of doing more with less in martech  07:10 - Why autonomy doesn't mean AGI: the rise of micro-agent hierarchies 10:33 - AI decisioning agents explained and how they're finally delivering value  15:02 - Two-sided ROI: efficiency gains that unlock effectiveness and insight 20:52 - Adoption reality: mistrust, user inertia, and the need for hand-holding  31:21 - Moving data governance from meeting rooms to infrastructure   Sponsor  Brought to you by Hightouch - Went all-in on a big marketing suite but still struggling to get value? You're not alone. Our sponsor, Hightouch, spoke with 50+ enterprise teams and found 79% are frustrated by high costs, slow innovation, and rising complexity, often needing specialized teams just to keep things running. They'll share the full findings in a live webinar on February 12, plus what they're seeing from organizations updating their Martech stacks. Get the report and register! Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube.   Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode!    Always feel free to email us at podcast@themartechweekly.com.    Questions   Confessions   Reddit

    35 min
  4. Sweet, Suite Relief with Adam Greco

    JAN 21

    Sweet, Suite Relief with Adam Greco

    "Suite Fatigue is the moment you realize you're paying more every year for less flexibility and less value." — Adam   Marketing was supposed to get simpler. Instead, it got more expensive, harder to operate, and increasingly rigid. Jacqueline sits down with Adam Greco (previously at Salesforce, Adobe, and Amplitude) to unpack the rise of "Suite Fatigue," the growing frustration with all-in-one marketing technology platforms that promised the world but delivered fragments.   They get into why this moment feels different, how renewal pressure and slow innovation are turning "one vendor" into a long-term liability, and why the data warehouse is increasingly becoming the backbone of modern marketing stacks. The big question underneath it all: if you were starting from scratch today, would you still choose the same suite? Sponsor Brought to you by Hightouch — Went all-in on a big marketing suite but still struggling to get value? You're not alone. Our sponsor, Hightouch, spoke with 50+ enterprise teams and found 79% are frustrated by high costs, slow innovation, and rising complexity, often needing specialized teams just to keep things running. They'll share the full findings in a live webinar on February 12, plus what they're seeing from organizations updating their Martech stacks. Get the report and register! Timestamps 01:05 — Suite Fatigue defined: when the "simpler stack" turns into a tax 10:57 — What people admit out loud vs. what they only say off-record 15:54 — The core symptoms: lock-in, slow innovation, and forced migrations 18:12 — The Franken-suite reality: shallow integrations + pay-to-play support 27:33 — Why speed to activation breaks first in legacy stacks 43:02 — "Okay, boomer." Can suites make a comeback? 53:08 — What to do next when the math stops working Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! Always feel free to email us at podcast@themartechweekly.com. Questions Confessions Reddit

    1 hr
  5. The 6 Pain Points Martech Leaders Face

    JAN 14

    The 6 Pain Points Martech Leaders Face

    "We've seen companies locked into vendors for a decade with no way out." – Juan   Jacqueline and Juan kick off 2026 with a quick reality check: stepping away from screens feels great, but the Martech stack doesn't magically get simpler while you're gone. They get brutally practical, drawing on conversations with 300+ brand-side marketers to map the six biggest pain points emerging across enterprise teams right now.   They dig into why "Customer 360" is still mostly a fantasy, how integration complexity turns stacks into brittle Jenga towers, and why AI pressure is creating more chaos than value. From auto-renewal horror stories to redundant CDPs and initiatives chasing optics instead of ROI, the message is consistent: confidence comes from evidence, not experience bias — and the cost of getting it wrong has never been higher.   Sponsor   Brought to you by Hightouch — Went all-in on a big marketing suite but still struggling to get value? You're not alone. Our sponsor, Hightouch, spoke with 50+ enterprise teams and found 79% are frustrated by high costs, slow innovation, and rising complexity, often needing specialized teams just to keep things running. They'll share the full findings in a live webinar on February 12, plus what they're seeing from organizations updating their Martech stacks. Get the report and register! Timestamps   02:10 — An exclusive announcement for listeners 03:50 — Why experience-based advice keeps failing enterprise teams 07:45 — Six themes from 300+ marketer conversations: what's breaking in enterprise 10:50 — Data fragmentation and the myth of Customer 360 15:00 — Why evidence-based decisions are the only way forward 18:20 — Integration complexity, legacy sprawl, and cross-team coordination failures 26:15 — AI pressure without value: herd mentality of GenAI, risk, and bad customer experiences 31:00 — Adoption and operating model problems: utilization dropping, skills gaps growing 36:00 — Measurement, attribution, and ROI proof gaps: why nobody trusts the numbers 41:30 — Scaling personalization and execution speed: the bottlenecks no tool can fix Connect & Subscribe   Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube.   Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! Always feel free to email us at podcast@themartechweekly.com.  Questions  Confessions  Reddit

    55 min
  6. Battle of the Bots with Mariska Calabrese, beehiiv & Jakub Alexa, Omnivery

    JAN 7

    Battle of the Bots with Mariska Calabrese, beehiiv & Jakub Alexa, Omnivery

    Email feels free, but the economics are brutal: zero-cost sending makes abuse infinitely scalable.    In this episode, Jacqueline sits down with Mariska and Jakub to unpack the "bot layer" that's quietly wrecking modern email: security scanners, crawlers, and malicious automation that inflate clicks, poison dashboards, and trigger the wrong automations. They get specific about why bad actors iterate faster than platforms, why "heuristic guesswork" leads to painful false positives, and how beehiiv opted for radical transparency by showing verified clicks alongside raw data. The conversation also jumps channels: Jakub argues RCS could undercut SMS on price and become the next high-volume abuse playground.   This episode was recorded in October 2025. Any references to global events were included as illustrative context, not as commentary on current news.   Sponsor Brought to you by Hightouch - the leading composable CDP and decisioning platform trusted by brands like Domino's, Chime, and Aritzia. 90% of customers have a real use case live within their first week, delivering world-class personalization at scale. Learn more at www.hightouch.com/msom.   Timestamps   01:20 – Worst unsubscribe nightmares, Roman aqueducts, and unexpected heroes 05:40 – Why "free" email creates systemic abuse (and why volume hides the bad actors) 08:06 – How threat actors bypass trust indicators 11:02 – The reality check: protection isn't getting easier, it's getting more complicated 19:02 – Defining non-human interactions (NHI) and bot detection 24:12 – Bot detection: definitive data vs heuristics, and why false positives hurt more 26:20 – Elevating verified human engagement at Beehiiv 33:13 – RCS vs SMS: the pricing lever that could supercharge abuse 46:14 - Global privacy legislation and the future of trust   Connect & Subscribe   Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube.    Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode!   Questions: https://themartechweekly.com/podcast/question/ Confessions: https://themartechweekly.com/podcast/confession-corner/  Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/MSoMPodcast/comments/1morng8/office_hours_questions/

    56 min
  7. The Renaissance

    12/31/2025

    The Renaissance

    Farewell, 2025 — what a year.    It marked the revival of Making Sense of Martech, and we owe it all to you and the incredible guests who took a chance on us.   Here are a few standout moments. Wishing you happy holidays and a brilliant new year!   Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! https://theMartechweekly.com/podcast/question/ https://theMartechweekly.com/podcast/confession-corner/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MSoMPodcast/comments/1morng8/office_hours_questions/

    9 min
  8. The Blooper Reel

    12/24/2025

    The Blooper Reel

    Merry everything and more. Here's your very own present from us to you!   Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! https://theMartechweekly.com/podcast/question/ https://theMartechweekly.com/podcast/confession-corner/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MSoMPodcast/comments/1morng8/office_hours_questions/

    4 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

Unfiltered takes on the biggest shifts in marketing technology. We spotlight what matters, who's leading (or lagging), and what's next. In Martech, clarity is power — and we're here to deliver it.

Information

  • Creator
    Juan Mendoza + Jacqueline Freedman
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    92
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © The Martech Weekly
  • Show Website
    Making Sense of Martech

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