If you care about selling more to fewer people, which is the whole point of ABM, then intent data is the difference between guesswork and precision. The old playbook (spray leads, hope a few stick) still works sometimes, but not reliably and not efficiently. Demandbase has spent the last decade turning intent into something you can operate against: Account-level signals, real-time activation and a growing set of integrations that let marketing and sales act in unison. In plain terms: Demandbase helps you see which accounts are actually shopping, then pushes that signal into your systems so humans and machines can respond quickly.  Why intent matters now Intent data is basically behavioural intelligence at scale. It’s not a single click or a form fill; it’s a pattern - multiple signals across web activity, keyword consumption and content engagement that, when stitched together, indicate an account is researching your category or ready to buy. That matters because buying in B2B is rarely a one-person, one-form event. Decisions are made by committees and over weeks (or months), and intent lets you detect those buying committees earlier and with more confidence. Demandbase packages those signals into account-level intent profiles. That’s important: it turns noisy, individual-level signals into a clean, account-centred lens you can use for routing, ad targeting, personalisation and sales outreach. The practical effect is that you stop chasing the loudest lead and start pursuing the best-timed opportunity.  What Demandbase brings to the table There are three practical things Demandbase changes about how B2B GTM teams work. First, it makes account-level intent operational. Platforms that surface interest by cookie or isolated clicks are useful, but they don’t solve the core ABM problem: Matching signals to accounts and to the buying committee. Demandbase’s intent product is explicitly built to map keywords and content consumption to companies and to surface those accounts with confidence, so teams can prioritise outreach using a single pane of glass.  Second, it makes intent actionable in real time. Detecting intent is only valuable if you can act quickly. Demandbase has pushed hard on integrations and automations that let you trigger ads, alerts and workflow actions the moment an account shows meaningful activity. Those triggers are most powerful when they fire into your CRM, your routing engine or your marketing automation platform so people and systems can react without manual fuss.  Third, Demandbase is building an ecosystem around implementation and operational support. They surface and certify service partners and agencies in a marketplace so companies can find skilled implementers rather than trying to stitch everything together internally. That matters because the technology alone doesn’t produce results... the right setup, mappings and playbooks do.  How the rules change for Marketing Ops and Sales Before intent, prioritisation often meant sorting by lead score or recency. With robust account intent, prioritisation becomes choreography. You’ll be deciding who to target and when based on demonstrated account interest: What topics an account is consuming, whether those behaviours are sustained or fleeting, and whether the account fits your ICP. Sales gets contextual plays (here’s what they’ve been reading; here’s the likely committee), and marketing gets to spend ad dollars where they’ll actually move pipeline. That choreography depends on clean data and reliable syncs. Demandbase’s integrations with CRMs and MA platforms, including a bidirectional HubSpot integration, mean intent fields can live inside your CRM records and trigger workflows. The initial sync can take time, so plan for it and baseline your systems first so you don’t break attribution or routing when the data starts flowing.  What actually works: An intent-first approach that keeps humans in the loop We’ve seen three playbooks work repeatedly when intent is used well. The first is intent-triggered outbound: A clear spike in account-level activity should be treated like a raised hand. That doesn’t mean blasting every contact at that company; it means a coordinated sequence: SDR outreach informed by the exact topics the account consumed, matched display ads to the buying committee and, if the account is high-value, an AE alert with talking points. The most expensive mistakes come from pretending intent is perfect, use it as a prioritisation signal, not a hard rule. The second is account nurture and personalisation. Demandbase gives you the ability to change the experience for an account while it’s browsing your site or seeing your ads. Swap hero messaging, surface relevant case studies, and move accounts into tailored nurture sequences in HubSpot or your MA platform. Those micro-personalisations scale when they’re automated off intent segments rather than manual one-offs. The third is routing and assignment. High-confidence intent surges should change ownership and urgency. Integrations that push intent signals into routing engines let you automate re-assignment and create follow-up tasks the instant an account becomes hot. That reduces time-to-contact and ensures opportunities don’t slip through because someone assumed another team was handling them. Recent product updates have made these routed flows more deterministic and reliable.  The engineering you’ll wish you’d done first Intent is only as useful as the data model you build around it. That means canonical account keys (so Demandbase matches to the same company records in your CRM), consistent field mappings for intent score, topics and last-activity timestamps, and TTL (time-to-live) rules so old intent doesn’t keep resurfacing. You’ll also want a reconciliation job that compares Demandbase signals against CRM activity so you can tune thresholds and reduce false positives. If you use HubSpot, use the official Demandbase integration and treat it like infrastructure: Document what fields map where, how often they update, and who owns the fields. The first sync to HubSpot or any CRM can take days depending on volume; plan for that window and communicate it to sales so they don’t panic when new fields appear.  A practical scoring model you can copy A pragmatic scoring model blends fit and intent. Start with ICP fit (industry, revenue band, technographic match), then layer on recent behaviour (visits to pricing, product pages, comparison content), then weight Demandbase topic relevance and cross-channel engagement. Set clear thresholds so the system flows cleanly: High-confidence accounts trigger AE alerts, medium accounts go to SDR sequences and lower accounts feed nurture and content personalisation. The exact weights will vary by business, but the hybrid approach guards against single-signal bias and makes intent easier to trust. Why Consultancy firms matter You can buy Demandbase in an afternoon. Doing it thoughtfully so it moves pipeline requires experience. Consultancies - especially those certified by Demandbase - bring operational blueprints: Field mapping templates, a 90-day pilot plan, SDR playbooks, creative for ABM display and personalisation templates for CMS. Demandbase’s partner marketplace exists because they know implementation and GTM alignment are where the value is realised. If you don’t already have internal MarTech bandwidth, working with a specialist reduces time-to-impact and avoids expensive mistakes.  How Sojourn Solutions helps At Sojourn Solutions we position ourselves as the strategic integrator between Demandbase and the rest of a company’s GTM stack. We help define the ICP, implement the Demandbase ↔ MAP ↔ CRM syncs, build the scoring model and create the sales and SDR plays that convert signals into meetings and pipeline. We don’t sell the tech as a silver bullet... we sell the experiments, the wiring diagrams and the handoffs that make intent data a reliable source of revenue. A 90-day pilot that proves the concept If you need a short roadmap: Week 0 is alignment: Agree ICP, pick 20–50 pilot accounts and baseline engagement metrics. Weeks 1 – 4 are connection and mapping: Get Demandbase talking to your MAP and your CRM and test the initial sync. Weeks 5 – 8 are activation: Run intent-triggered outreach, matched display for buying committees and personalised landing experiences. Weeks 9 – 12 are measurement and scale: Refine thresholds, expand to a larger cohort and produce a simple ABM ROI deck showing influenced pipeline and time-to-opportunity improvements. That cadence keeps the pilot focused on measurable outcomes rather than endless configuration. Common traps (so you don’t waste budget) Teams often make the same mistakes: They treat intent as a guarantee rather than a signal; they rush integration without documenting mappings and ownership; or they fail to give sales clear, usable context when they route an account. The fix is simple but non-negotiable: Treat intent as part of a system, data + playbooks + enablement. If you automate without enabling, you’ll create more noise than value. Closing: Act fast, design for clarity Intent changes the rules because it lets you act earlier and with more confidence. Demandbase provides a mature set of intent signals and an expanding integration surface that turns those signals into action. But platform alone isn’t enough. The real winners are teams who build the plumbing, write the plays and measure the outcomes. If you want help turning intent into pipeline, Sojourn Solutions can design and run pilots, implement integrations with your MAP and CRM, build the scoring and routing logic, and hand over the dashboards and playbooks your teams will actually use. Discover our ABM services

Let’s be honest: The ABM world is full of beautiful lies. If you believed everything on LinkedIn, you’d think every marketing team is running hyper-personalised, intent-fueled, cross-channel orchestration masterpieces where Sales and Marketing are perfectly aligned, data is pristine, and every deal closes with a bow on top. In reality? Most teams are somewhere between “we think we know who we want to sell to”  and “we once tried ABM, but it turned into a glorified ad campaign.” The problem isn’t that people are bad at ABM. It’s that we keep pretending it’s a single playbook. ABM has become one of those phrases that’s said so often it’s practically lost meaning. Every company claims to “do ABM.” Some even throw in “ABX” for good measure, as if that makes it sound smarter or more modern. But let’s be honest, most teams saying they do ABM are running wildly different programs. One company’s “ABM” might be five named accounts and a stack of handwritten notes; another’s could be 5,000 accounts in a programmatic ad engine that auto-inserts the company name into a banner ad and calls it “personalisation.” The uncomfortable truth is that ABM isn’t one thing. It’s a spectrum.  And the further you go down that spectrum, the more it should reflect how well you actually know your market... your total addressable market , or TAM . Because if you’re running “laser ABM” when your TAM is a foggy mess, you’ll waste a lot of time writing love letters to the wrong people. And if you’re running scalable, intent-driven ABX when your buyer universe is only twenty logos deep, you’re basically using a machine gun to hit a dartboard. So let’s take off the ABM rose-tinted glasses and talk about what it really  looks like. The styles, the realities, and the traps marketers keep walking into because someone told them “this is how ABM is supposed to be done.” ABM is a spectrum, not a religion Imagine ABM not as a “framework” or “best practice” but as a sliding scale. On one end, you’ve got Laser ABM , where you can name every single account you care about. On the other, Scalable ABX , where your TAM runs into the thousands and you’re betting on data, automation, and signals to tell you who to talk to next. Between them sits Focused ABM , the middle child of the trio - not quite bespoke, not quite automated, but still personal enough to matter. Which end of that spectrum you live on depends entirely on two things: How clearly you know your market. How much bandwidth and data you have to support that knowledge. That’s the uncomfortable bit. You can’t “decide” to do 1:1 ABM if you don’t have the data. You can’t “scale” ABX if your CRM looks like it was last cleaned when the first Avatar movie was released. So, let’s walk through the three main styles - how they work, where they shine, and where they usually crash and burn. The “Laser ABM” world: We know exactly who we want Laser ABM is the purest, cleanest, most idealised form of the craft. It’s also the hardest to get right. These are companies with a finite  set of targets. They can literally list every account they want to win on a single spreadsheet tab. They know the players, the competitors, and even which Execs just left which company. This is the classic “one-to-one” model: High-touch, high-effort, and usually high-stakes. It’s about building deep relationships, not just running ads. You might build custom landing pages, host private dinners, send personalised reports, or (if you’re truly brave) record a video message saying, “Hey Sarah, we noticed you’re integrating Salesforce and SAP, and here’s what that might mean for your data security.” It works brilliantly when done well. If you’ve got 50 high-value accounts, a long sales cycle, and contract values that justify the investment, Laser ABM is your sniper rifle. But - and this is a big but - it’s expensive, slow, and fragile. If one of those accounts ghosts you or gets acquired mid-cycle, all that personalised content turns to dust. And if your sales team isn’t aligned with marketing from day one, you’ll end up with beautifully crafted assets that never see daylight. Laser ABM demands precision, patience, and brutal prioritization. It’s not about doing “more.” It’s about doing less , but with absolute focus. The “Focused ABM” middle ground: We know our type Most organisations live here. They’ve moved beyond “everyone with a LinkedIn profile and a pulse” but aren’t ready for full-on Laser ABM. They have an ideal customer profile (ICP) , maybe a few industries, some firmographic markers and common pain points. They can cluster accounts into meaningful groups: “mid-market tech firms expanding to EMEA,” or “enterprise financial institutions modernising their MarTech stack.” The magic of Focused ABM is that you get the benefits of personalisation without  the mental breakdown that comes with building a microsite for every account. You create slightly tailored plays: Campaigns, content hubs, webinars, roundtables, that speak directly to the cluster. It’s personal enough to resonate but still scalable enough to measure. The danger here is getting lazy. Too many teams take Focused ABM and turn it into “ABM-flavoured demand gen.” They write one “industry ebook” and pretend it’s personalised. They forget that Focused ABM still requires insight. Still requires relevance. Still requires the human touch. When it’s done right, though? It’s the sweet spot . Cost-effective, strategic, and repeatable. The “Scalable ABX” end: We know roughly who we want, and we trust the data Welcome to the wild frontier of scale. This is where your TAM stretches into the thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, and you rely on technology to make sense of it all. Here, it’s not about knowing  every company; it’s about detecting  them. You let intent data, predictive models, and machine learning tell you who’s showing buying signals. You build orchestrations that nudge the right accounts at the right time, and your SDRs jump in when the data lights up like a Christmas tree. It’s powerful, efficient, and scalable... if you’ve got the plumbing in place. The problem? A lot of companies don’t. You can’t automate what you don’t understand. If your account data is outdated, your intent signals noisy, or your scoring model blind to context, you’ll end up spending thousands to serve “personalised” display ads to people who left the company two years ago. Done right, scalable ABX is a beautiful mix of automation and timing. Done wrong, it’s the illusion of personalisation at industrial scale. How your industry dictates your style Not every industry gets to pick where they sit on the spectrum. Some are naturally wired for one type of ABM. If you’re selling cybersecurity software to the top 200 global banks, you’re in Laser ABM  territory - your buyer universe is finite and relationships are everything. If you’re a mMarketing Services firm targeting specific verticals, you’ll likely thrive with Focused ABM  - industry clusters, segmented plays, human touch layered with efficiency. And if you’re a MarTech or SaaS platform with thousands of potential customers? Scalable ABX  is your reality - but you’d better have your data ducks in a row, or you’ll be burning budget faster than your SDRs can send cold emails. The key is to stop pretending you’re something you’re not. Don’t run a Laser ABM play if your TAM is too wide. Don’t run programmatic ABX if your buyers expect a handshake and a steak dinner. ABM works best when it’s honest about its environment. Data, tools, and other ways to set your money on fire Every ABM conversation eventually turns to tools. “What platform should we use?” “Do we need intent data?” “Should we integrate our MAP with our CDP and our CRM and our third cousin’s Excel sheet?” Here’s the short version: Buy tech to match your strategy, not the other way around. If you’re in Laser ABM mode, spend your money on insight... tools that help you understand and reach a handful of accounts more deeply. You don’t need a massive orchestration engine for ten accounts. If you’re in Focused ABM, invest in systems that help you segment intelligently and scale creative output efficiently. And if you’re doing Scalable ABX, then yes, you need the full plumbing: The intent feeds, the predictive scoring, the orchestration platforms, the ad tech. But even then, tools don’t fix broken data. Clean your data before you automate it. If your firmographics and contact data are garbage, you’re just automating garbage faster. The people problem nobody talks about You can have all the data, tools, and frameworks in the world, but ABM collapses fast without cross-functional trust. Laser ABM thrives when Marketing, Sales, and MOPs work as a pod... one small, scrappy team obsessed with a handful of accounts. They share insights, feedback, and even the occasional panic attack when the Exec meeting gets postponed. Focused ABM depends on coordination. Marketing defines the clusters, sales buys into them, and everyone rallies around the same metrics. Scalable ABX is a machine, but it still needs humans to tune it. Marketing Ops builds the engine, Sales development drives it, and Leadership keeps it aligned with pipeline goals. If those teams aren’t talking daily (and honestly), your ABM program becomes a very expensive mirage. Measuring what actually matters This is the part that gets uncomfortable, because ABM success isn’t about leads or click-through rates. In Laser ABM, success looks like influence and velocity. Did you reach the buying committee? Did you close the deal faster? Did the account engage deeply? In Focused ABM, it’s about impact across clusters. Are the targeted industries producing better opportunities, higher win rates, bigger deals? And in Scalable ABX, it’s about efficiency and conversion. Are intent-driven accounts converting faster? Are you spending less per influenced opportunity? Everything else, impressions, likes, CTR... that’s just noise. It makes dashboards look busy but doesn’t tell you if you’re making money. How to evolve from chaos to clarity If you’re reading this thinking, “We’re a bit of all three,” you’re not alone. Most teams evolve through these stages... and it’s not a straight line. The smart move is to pick a lane  for a quarter or two. Start with what’s real. Clean your data. Define your ICP. Align Sales and Marketing on what “good” looks like. Then pilot something small, a handful of accounts or a single segment, and measure the hell out of it. Once you’ve proven lift, you can expand. But resist the temptation to “scale” before you can even prove causality. Otherwise, you’ll end up automating mediocrity. The real secret: ABM is about honesty The best ABM programs aren’t the ones with the shiniest tech or the prettiest dashboards. They’re the ones built on honesty. Honesty about what you know. Honesty about your data quality. Honesty about your bandwidth. You don’t need to “do ABM like Salesforce.” You need to do ABM like you , in a way that fits your TAM, your sales model, and your operational maturity. Because when you strip away the jargon, ABM is just smart, coordinated marketing - focused on the accounts that actually matter, using the level of personalisation you can sustain without losing your sanity. And that’s the version of ABM that works. Closing thought If there’s one rule worth tattooing on every Marketing Ops Team’s whiteboard, it’s this: Don’t let someone else’s ABM maturity model make you feel behind. You’re not behind. You’re just on a different part of the spectrum and the goal isn’t to “ graduate ” to the next level, it’s to master the one you’re in. Whether you’re running sniper campaigns, cluster plays, or intent-driven orchestrations, the principle is the same: Know your market Respect your data Align your humans Measure what matters. Everything else is just theatre. Discover our ABM Services

I never set out to become a Marketing Operations professional. Somewhere along the line, between a love for data and a desire to make marketers’ lives easier, I found myself buried in dashboards, drowning in workflows, and relentlessly answering questions that seemed to have no answer. And somehow, the world still expects me to smile through it. If you’re reading this and nodding along, congratulations ... you’re either a MOPs pro, someone who has or is dating one, or someone who’s about to realise exactly how much you take your Marketing Operations team for granted. Welcome to the confessional. The daily grind: Chaos dressed in corporate fashion Let me paint you a picture. It’s 7:03 a.m. You’re five sips into your third coffee. Your inbox is full of requests, many of which arrived after midnight , marked urgent. A VP has pinged you because their “totally crucial” email campaign won’t send... it’s 7 a.m., so clearly the world is ending. Your MAP (Marketing Automation Platform) dashboard has more red flags than a Soviet propaganda poster. Somewhere in there, your workflow that was supposed to run at 2 a.m. failed - because someone forgot to approve a campaign. And yes, they just forgot to check the box that says “active.” This, dear reader, is the daily reality of a Marketing Ops pro. Firefighting ad-hoc campaigns. Cleaning data that somehow regenerated itself overnight. Untangling integrations between systems that were never meant to talk to each other. And attending meetings that are ostensibly “ strategy ” but consist mostly of people asking questions they could have Googled in 0.3 seconds. By 9 a.m., you’ve already explained to three different teams that “no, we cannot launch a campaign targeting every single contact in the database... they will unsubscribe, revolt, or both.” By 11 a.m., your brain is negotiating with itself about whether “I quit” is an acceptable Slack status. And by 3 p.m., you’re double-checking that your workflows didn’t spontaneously mutate overnight into some Frankenstein email nightmare. All of this is performed with a calm demeanour that would make the Dalai Lama look like a panic merchant. Because no one else will do it. And if we’re honest, we secretly enjoy being the people who can untangle chaos like some sort of wizard… even if it comes at the cost of our sanity. The emotional toll: Invisible, indispensable, exhausted Here’s a confession: Being a MOPs pro is exhausting. And not just physically, though your wrists and shoulders will stage a coup at least once a week. It’s mental. Emotional. Existential. You’re expected to know everything about every system, anticipate every problem, and fix it before anyone even realises it’s broken. And yet, when everything works perfectly... the campaigns, the workflows, the lead scoring, the dashboards... nobody notices. The marketers send their emails, the executives nod approvingly, and the world spins on. But if something breaks? If a segment doesn’t sync or a workflow hiccups? Suddenly you’re the villain. You’ve broken Marketing. You’ve failed the company. You’ve let the leads down. It’s a thankless job by design, but we survive. Some of us cry quietly in front of pivot tables. Some of us fantasise about running away to a deserted island where the only KPI is the number of coconuts we can collect in a day. Others simply build thicker skin, stronger caffeine tolerance, and a sharper sense of sarcasm. Humour becomes a survival mechanism. Without it, you’d be weeping into a stack of spreadsheets and accidentally emailing your resignation to the entire company. The hidden skills nobody sees Despite all this chaos, the truth is we’re amazing at what we do... and nobody notices until we’re gone. Being a MOPs pro requires a cocktail of skills that reads like a superhero origin story. 1. Data whispering:  We can spot duplicates in massive databases faster than anyone else can blink. We know when an integration will break before it happens. We can slice, dice, segment, and report with the precision of a surgeon... or at least a very determined barista. 2. Workflow untangling:  Complex automation? Broken triggers? Segmentation nightmares? We see the spaghetti code and somehow make it sing. We untangle more mess than a cat owner with a roll of yarn. 3. Diplomacy under pressure:  Ever had a CMO yelling at you because their campaign didn’t send, while a sales VP simultaneously demands a last-minute list? We can calm both, explain what happened in layman’s terms, and still leave the meeting alive. 4. Predictive problem-solving:  We think in scenarios. Contingencies. If A happens, B breaks, and C melts down. And yet, somehow, we keep the machine running. 5. Multitasking mastery:  Meetings, dashboards, data hygiene, campaign launches, executive updates… and yes, someone asking if we can “just clone this email from last year” because apparently time travel hasn’t been invented yet. In short, we’re invisible superheroes. The kind who make your marketing world look easy, while secretly balancing ten flaming swords on our heads. And if you’re a MOPs pro reading this, nod now - because you know exactly what I mean. Coping mechanisms: Staying sane without losing your soul So how do we survive? How do we avoid complete mental collapse while keeping the ship afloat? Let’s be honest: It’s part strategy, part ritual, part sheer stubbornness. 1. Automation hacks and shortcuts:  If there’s a way to make the system do the work for you, we’ve found it. Even if it means a thousand rules and exceptions. The key is to automate what doesn’t require a human brain... the human brain is already overcommitted. 2. Slack bots for sanity:  Alerts, reminders, funny gifs - sometimes a well-timed bot message saying “you’re doing fine, human” is the emotional support we need. 3. The art of saying “no”:  This is sacred. Not every request is urgent, and not every campaign needs to exist. Saying “no” while preserving relationships is a skill honed over years of trial, error, and mild panic attacks. 4. Micro-rituals:  Coffee, meditation, walks, breathing exercises, or quietly screaming into a pillow in your office (no judgment). Anything to prevent turning into a MOPs-shaped puddle on the floor. 5. Community therapy:  Sharing war stories with other MOPs pros. Validation is powerful. Realising that yes, everyone else has also had a campaign fail because someone moved a single checkbox without telling anyone... that’s pure emotional gold. How organisations can actually help Here’s a truth many leadership teams don’t grasp: Marketing Ops isn’t a glorified admin function. We are the brain of the organisation’s marketing engine. Treat us like janitors, and you’ll be cleaning up messes while we silently consider new career paths. Treat us with respect, and the ROI will follow. Practical ways organisations can help: Set realistic expectations:  Not every campaign can launch instantly. Not every lead can be “rescued.” Recognise our work:  Celebrate successes, highlight wins, and understand the value we deliver behind the scenes. Provide tools that actually work:  MAPs, CRMs, integrations - the right stack reduces burnout and improves efficiency. Tools like MOPsy that automate the mundane while guiding decision-making are game-changers. Allow for strategic thinking:  Not every day needs to be reactive. Give MOPs pros time to analyze, plan, and innovate. If you do these things, you’ll be amazed at the difference. Happy MOPs pros equal smooth Marketing Operations. It’s not magic; it’s respect, tools, and time. The reality check Let’s be honest: Marketing Ops isn’t glamorous. It’s rarely celebrated. It’s frequently misunderstood. But it’s essential. Without MOPs pros, campaigns fail silently, leads slip through cracks, and dashboards lie. And yet, we endure. Because at the end of the day, we care... deeply. We care about the data. We care about the campaigns. We care about results. And we care about making marketers’ lives a little less chaotic - even if it means sacrificing our own peace of mind. If you’re a MOPs pro reading this, take a deep breath. You are seen. You are appreciated. And your work matters, even when nobody notices. The bittersweet truth So here’s the confessional truth: I’m burned out, exhausted, and sometimes want to throw my laptop out the window. But I also love what I do. Because being a Marketing Ops pro is like being a backstage wizard at a rock concert - the lights, the smoke, the music all look effortless, but without us, the show doesn’t happen. Tomorrow, there will be more dashboards. More urgent campaigns. More checkboxes forgotten and workflows gone rogue. And somehow, we’ll face it. With coffee in hand, sarcasm in our hearts, and a quiet determination that this chaos will bend, not break us. If you’re reading this, nod. Laugh. Cry. Then go check your MAP and remember: You are not alone, and someday, someone will finally write a song about the heroes behind the campaigns. Until then, keep confessions like these coming. We deserve it. Discover our Services

You promised better pipeline, a cleaner CRM, and fewer late-night “where did that lead go?” panic emails next year. Good. This guide will get you there without buzzwords, or vague platitudes. It’s a practical, step-by-step plan you can start today (yes, today) so your Q1 doesn’t smell like 2024’s data dumpster fire. This isn’t a checklist you print and forget. It’s a playbook: Triage, triage again, fix the real problems first, then tidy up. Expect decisions, compromises, and a little corporate bravery. Someone will need to own it. Make that person you or make it someone you can glare at until it gets done. First things first... who needs to be in the room Before you touch anything: Gather three roles (one person can play multiple roles, but don’t make a single martyr do everything): An Operations lead (HubSpot admin or Marketing Ops), S data owner (Sales ops or a senior rep who cares about lists and deals), A stakeholder (Sales leader or CMO who will sign off on rules and deletions). If your org can spare a business analyst or developer for an afternoon, bring them. If not, at least brief the person who handles integrations... those are the things that’ll embarrass you later. Triage: Find the things that actually hurt Not all mess is equal. Start by identifying what’s actively costing you time or money. Focus on four pain zones: Duplicate records, stale contacts/companies, broken automations, and bad reporting. Run these quick checks: How many contacts haven’t been touched in 18 months? (That’s candidate stale.) How many automations have run in the past 90 days vs how many workflows exist? (Alert: Unused workflows are future liabilities.) Which lists have more than 30% exclusions or errors? (Lists that lie are worse than no lists.) Are there integrations writing bad or duplicate data (Forms, events, Salesforce, ad platforms)? The goal is to find the high-impact fixes first. Don’t get lost prettifying contact property labels while the lead-to-deal conversion is leaking like a sieve. Step 1. Duplicate cleanup (but don’t be a trigger-happy scrubber) Duplicates are the low-hanging fruit. HubSpot has built-in de-duplication for contacts by email, and companies by domain, but it misses clever duplicates (e.g., same person with work and personal emails, or +aliases). Start with a conservative merge policy: Identify duplicates by email and company domain, Flag fuzzy duplicates (name + phone, email variations) for human review, Merge confirmed duplicates, preserving the most complete record and timeline. Important : Export a full backup of records you’re about to merge. Yes, export. If someone yells later (“where’s my notes?”), you can restore data or explain what changed. Also document your merging rules... future you will thank past you. Step 2. Archive the dead (stale contacts & companies) “ Stale ” is different by business, but a practical threshold is 12–18 months of no opens, clicks, site visits, form submissions, deals, or calls. Don’t delete on day one though... archive. Create an “archived - inactive 18m” lifecycle stage or property and: Move contacts to a low-cost marketing list (or suppress them from campaigns), Set a re-engagement campaign that runs for 45 days with two honest offers, If no response, move them to a final archive (or mark them for deletion after 90 days). This keeps your database lean, reduces send costs, and improves deliverability, and you can still re-activate a lead if they come back. Step 3. Stop the bad inputs at the source Broken forms, weird API pushes, and over-eager Zapier paths make a mess faster than people clean it. Audit every inbound source: Public forms, Landing pages, Chatbots, Integrations (Salesforce, e-commerce, ad platforms), Manual CSV imports in the last 12 months. For each source, ask: What fields are we writing? Are we mapping them consistently? Who owns that source? Fix the ones creating garbage: normalise property mappings, add validation on forms, and lock down who can import. If you have external teams hitting HubSpot (agencies, contractors), revoke access and set up a controlled import process. No more “we’ll just upload a CSV.” Step 4. Workflow triage: Keep the useful, kill the rest Workflows that don’t run aren’t “assets.” They’re technical debt. Filter workflows by “last run” and owner. Then: Archive workflows that haven’t run in 90 days and have no business purpose, Fix workflows throwing errors (those red logs scream for attention), Consolidate overlapping workflows (multiple flows doing the same thing = chaos), Label workflows clearly: Purpose, owner, last modified date. Add a naming convention: [team] - [purpose] - [owner initials] - [YYYYMMDD]. It’s boring, but future you will not have to guess who killed the lead. Step 5. Property tidy: Less is more HubSpot instances accumulate properties like trophies from short, painful projects. Ask: Is this property used in lists, workflows, filters, or reports? If not, it’s probably a candidate for deletion or consolidation. Process: Export a list of custom properties and where they’re used, Mark properties as “in use,” “duplicate,” or “orphaned”, Merge duplicates and delete orphaned properties after a 30-day warning period. Rename properties only if you can update all dependencies. Keep an audit sheet: Property name, apiName, purpose, owner, and last used. Discover our Podcast Step 6. Standardise lifecycle stages and lead scoring If Sales and Marketing disagree about what a lead is, nothing works. Agree on definitions for lifecycle stages (lead, mql, sql, opportunity, customer) and who moves the stages. Make them simple and enforceable. For lead scoring: Keep it meaningful. Remove noisy signals (e.g., pageviews with low intent), prioritise fit and intent, and map scores to clear actions. Test scoring thresholds with a 30-day run and adjust. Document everything and publish the definitions to Sales. Then make sure workflows align to these definitions, otherwise you’ll have people operating on different planets. Step 7. Fix reporting so you can stop guessing If your dashboards are full of “last 90 days” widgets that mean nothing, rebuild them. Identify five core metrics your execs actually use (e.g., MQL to SQL conversion, average sales cycle, pipeline by stage, lead source ROI, email deliverability). Build one clean dashboard that tells the truth. When rebuilding reports: Use consistent date ranges, Standardise UTM tracking and source attribution, Avoid duplicated metrics across dashboards (confusing). If reports disagree, trace them back to source definitions, often the disagreement is a definition problem, not a math problem. Step 8. Lock down access & reduce human error Too many admins = too many ways to break things. Audit user permissions. Make a strict admin group and a broader editor group. Enforce: Two-person approval for automation that can change lifecycle stage or delete data, Limited API keys with named owners and expiration dates, Logging and a change request process for major modifications. Yes, it adds friction. You want friction for things that can break revenue. Step 9. Communication and change management Cleaning HubSpot is a political act. Tell people what you’re doing before you do it. Run a short internal campaign: A kickoff email that explains why (no drama, just facts), A 30-day “watch period” where changes are flagged but reversible, Training docs and a recording for any new flows or dashboards. Include a short FAQ: What will be deleted, who to contact if a record disappears, and where the backup lives. The goal is fewer surprise Slack freakouts. (If you want, use this subject line: “FYI: HubSpot clean-up. What’s changing and why.” Short, direct, no panic.) Step 10. Create a maintenance rhythm Once clean, keep it clean. Schedule: Monthly duplicate and error reports, Quarterly property reviews, Bi-weekly workflow review for any new builds, An annual archive purge. Make these tasks part of someone’s role and include them in your ops calendar. If it’s not scheduled, it won’t happen. Final safety net. Backup & rollback Before you delete or merge anything irreversible: Export. Full exports of contacts, companies, deals, and properties should be saved with a timestamp and stored in a shared drive. If an automated process goes sideways, you need a rollback plan and a contact who can execute it. Also keep a change log: What was changed, why, who approved it, and links to the export. This is not busywork, it’s insurance. Sample 30-/60-/90 day plan (high level) 30 days : Triage, duplicate merges, archive clearly stale records, stop bad inputs, start stakeholder comms. 60 days : Workflow consolidation, property cleanup, reporting rebuild, lock down access. 90 days : Finalise deletions/archives, train teams, schedule maintenance cadence. Adjust timing to your org size; small teams move faster, big teams need more approvals. The point is momentum: Fix the biggest leaks first. Wrap-up: What success looks like Clean data, fewer manual fixes, reports you can trust, faster handoffs to sales, and a predictable ops rhythm. You’ll lose some vanity properties and bad automations, but you’ll get a CRM that earns its keep. If there’s one last thing: Stop treating HubSpot like a dumping ground. Make it a system of record, not a personal playground. When people know there’s ownership, standards, and consequences, behaviour changes. And Q1 will thank you for it. Discover our Services

When your Marketing Operations span multiple business units, consistency and visibility can make or break performance. At one of our clients who works in the financial sector discovered, that complexity had grown quietly over time, until reporting felt fragmented, deliverability checks were reactive, and simple absences could throw campaign schedules off balance. The marketing team was managing campaigns across several Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) business units, but, without a single view of production data, leadership struggled to see how it all fit together. Each business unit had its own forms, reporting formats, and processes... creating duplication, inefficiency, and unnecessary risk. Even inbox placement was a guessing game, with limited insight into spam filtering or list hygiene issues that could be quietly undermining performance. Sojourn worked with the client’s SFMC operations, to bring structure, reliability, and visibility back. We started with the basics: Tightening deliverability. Using Validity testing across both B2B and B2C campaigns, we identified where emails were being filtered, caught in spam traps, or losing deliverability strength. That work immediately improved list hygiene and reduced the hidden risks that often go unnoticed until results dip. Next, we pulled together the data that was scattered across their various production business units. By centralising it into a single, accessible dashboard, we gave leadership a clear, cross-unit view of marketing activity for the first time. No more fragmented snapshots, just one version of the truth. But structure isn’t just about dashboards. It’s also about resilience. We provided operational backup support to ensure campaigns kept running smoothly during staff absences, no missed sends, no delays in reporting, no broken processes. In parallel, we reviewed their reporting approach and suggested enhancements to make performance insights easier to access and act on. Finally, we helped the team explore new tools and workflows that would make SFMC work smarter. We evaluated SFMC-compatible deliverability solutions like Inbox Monster and advised on standardising form creation and hosting across business units, helping them create a more scalable, sustainable campaign setup process. The impact has been clear. By consolidating reporting and testing, they saved around 24 hours a year in manual effort, small in isolation, but significant when compounded across multiple teams and campaigns. Campaign execution continued without disruption during staff absences, and deliverability issues are now detected and resolved before they ever reach a customer’s inbox. Perhaps most importantly, leadership now has a centralised, real-time view of marketing performance. The days of piecing together fragmented reports are over, replaced by confidence, compliance, and clarity. This wasn’t about overhauling technology. It was about strengthening the foundation, giving our client the visibility and consistency to keep campaigns running smoothly, no matter what. Discover our Services

Sojourn Solutions spends its days in the messiest rooms of modern Marketing. We see teams with solid strategies, ambitious leadership, and stacks of tech that cost a fortune. Yet, time and again, Marketing Operations is expected to be the brain of the organisation while being treated like the underpaid assistant... Survival mode... Marketing Operations is stuck in survival mode more often than not. On paper, everything seems fine. Campaigns go out, reports populate dashboards, emails get sent. But underneath, the systems that are supposed to make that happen are fraying. Teams are constantly troubleshooting, firefighting, and patching holes rather than improving processes or trying new approaches. They’re asked to be strategic while being starved of time and resources, and the result is a slow leak of capability. If you cannot clearly explain how a lead moves from first touch to closed deal, your operations are quietly failing. The never-ending integration headache Most enterprise tech stacks feel like someone just kept gluing new platforms on top of old ones. Legacy systems meet shiny new tools, with APIs and middleware trying their best to get along. The result? Data moves poorly, automations fail, and one small change can ripple across ten different processes. Integration isn’t a project you check off once... it’s a living, breathing problem that drains energy from every campaign and innovation effort. Teams spend more time fixing tech than actually using it to drive results. Messy data and the attribution fantasy Everyone says they’re data-driven. Few are . Data comes from everywhere, in all sorts of formats, and is rarely clean. There’s duplicate information, outdated contacts, and inconsistent definitions across teams and regions. Executives still demand “ perfect ” attribution models, as if buying decisions follow neat, linear paths. The reality is messy, and dashboards built on shaky data are at best misleading. Until enterprises treat data quality and governance as priorities, decision-making will be noisy, frustrating, and expensive. Drowning in dashboards MOPs has become the reporting arm of the business. Endless dashboards, pipeline influence reports, ROI slides... much of this work exists to reassure leadership, not improve marketing. Time that could go to optimising campaigns or testing new ideas is spent generating politically safe slides. Healthy organisations use measurement to guide experiments. Most enterprises use measurement to validate yesterday. If your team is only showing what happened and not helping decide what to do next, they’re underutilised at best . The AI promise, with a side of chaos The latest AI tools promise so much, and yet most teams see little return. Pilots stall because data is inconsistent, processes are undocumented, and nobody is clear on ownership. Technology without process is just theatre. The real value of AI comes when it replaces tedious work and frees people to focus on strategy and analysis. Otherwise, you just have another flashy tool that complicates things and adds noise to an already messy stack. People are the engine and the exhaust Marketing Operations people are rare, versatile, and often exhausted. They’re expected to be part data scientist, part strategist, part project manager, and part firefighter. Expecting a small team to cover all of that while also managing daily execution is unrealistic. Burnout is rampant when the same people get pulled into endless meetings, firefights, and manual work that could be automated. Recruiting and retaining these people requires giving them meaningful work, career paths, and breathing space. Alignment isn’t a meeting Every enterprise client loves to talk about alignment, but in practice it usually means conflicting priorities. Sales wants speed, IT wants stability, Product wants experimentation, Marketing wants growth. Marketing Operations ends up being the referee, spending much of the week negotiating trade-offs instead of building repeatable systems. Real alignment doesn’t happen in meetings. It happens when decision rights are clear, accountability is shared, and everyone actually agrees on how to operate. Compliance is a constant shadow Privacy laws have turned from a checkbox to a full-time operational concern. GDPR, CCPA, and a growing list of regional regulations mean consent, data residency, and lawful purpose must be engineered into campaigns from the start. Global teams need to tailor approaches by country, channel, and use case. That multiplies the number of scenarios MOPs must handle. The solution is systematic: Reliable tagging, clear escalation paths, and integrating privacy into campaign planning so it’s a known variable, not a blocker. Foundations over flash Documentation, standards, and SLAs aren’t glamorous, but they’re essential. Enterprises often invest in shiny tools and pilots while ignoring the plumbing that keeps everything running. Operational debt builds quietly and eventually consumes budgets and attention. Investing in standards, playbooks, and training isn’t exciting, but it’s what separates predictable delivery from constant crisis. Moving fast without breaking Marketing today is expected to operate at real-time speed. Traditional approval cycles and change management processes are too slow. Organisations respond by building more controls, which just slows things down further. The alternative is smarter governance: Small decision units, pre-approved playbooks for common scenarios, and clarity on acceptable risk. Fast doesn’t need to mean reckless, but it does need deliberate redesign. Turning Operations into advantage Marketing Operations can be a strategic driver instead of a support function, but it takes investment and authority. Leaders need to treat operational excellence as a priority, not an afterthought. That means clean data, integrated systems, empowered people, and clear processes. It means giving MOPs permission to standardise, prioritise, and sometimes say no to tools and projects that create more work than value. That’s how Operations becomes a lever for growth, not just a cost centre. How Sojourn Solutions helps At Sojourn Solutions we help enterprise teams move from messy to reliable. We map operational bottlenecks, prioritise foundational fixes that have the biggest impact, and design governance that actually keeps the organisation moving. Because we cover every single aspect of modern Marketing Operations, our clients see their MOPs function go from reactive firefighting to proactive strategic advantage. So if you want your MOPs to stop being stuck in a never ending loop of survival mode and start being a predictable driver of growth, let us show you how. Discover our Services

Oracle’s closing out the year with a release that quietly packs a punch. Eloqua 25D isn’t full of flashy headlines, but it does deliver real impact, smarter AI tools, stronger governance options, and some integration changes you really  shouldn’t ignore. Here’s what’s worth your attention this time around: AI in Eloqua just levelled up If you’ve been experimenting with Eloqua’s generative AI, this release takes it up a notch. You can now use AI to shorten, lengthen, or bulletize  your copy right inside emails, landing pages, shared content, and dynamic content blocks. Even better, it’s completely free  to enable. If you haven't already, you just need to log a Support ticket to switch it on. And if you want to make sure your team knows how to use it well, Oracle has released a free 46-minute “AI for Eloqua” training course , available until November 3 . After that, it’s gone. So if you haven’t watched it yet, now’s the time. It’s practical, not fluffy, and a great primer before you start putting AI into your campaign workflow. HTML editing lands (finally)... but use with care One of the most-requested updates is finally here: you can now edit HTML source code directly  in Eloqua emails. That includes dynamic content, headers, footers, and shared content. Before you rush to open everything up, a word of caution, this is only available in Redwood , and Oracle is clearly positioning it as a testing feature  for now. In other words, experiment, learn, and validate… but don’t roll it straight into live production. Admin control and data visibility get tighter 25D also brings a few solid governance updates. You can now control who can create or update campaigns , both Multi-Step and Simple, via security groups, a small but very welcome step toward cleaner governance in large instances. You’ll also now see who created or modified contacts , and even how  those changes happened. That visibility extends through the API too, making audits and data hygiene easier to manage. Integrations and app updates worth knowing about A few app updates improve flexibility across the board. The Webhook App  now supports HTTP PUT and PATCH methods, opening up more automation options. The Zoom App  lets you set required fields and adds a few quality-of-life tweaks. Meanwhile, Salesforce users get a meaningful, but mixed, update. You can now map and update Campaign Member Status  attributes and use dynamic dates in Campaign Actions, both of which make syncing cleaner and smarter. However, there’s one headline that can’t be ignored: Eloqua’s native Salesforce CRM integration will be deprecated in November 2025. If you’re still using the old native connector, you need to check what’s running through it now,  because once it’s gone, anything still tied to that integration will simply stop working. The good news? You don’t have to panic. Sojourn can help assess your current setup, identify dependencies, and guide your transition plan well before the cutoff. Treat this as your friendly “start NOW ” reminder, not a fire drill in December... by then it is too late!!! Security and deliverability polish Oracle has also added the option to enforce SSO-only logins  (though use carefully, once it’s on, username/password logins stop working). Email deliverability rules are tightening too, with sending domains now validated against bounceback domains. And on the reporting side, Eloqua’s click tracking will now separate bot clicks from real human interactions , giving you cleaner engagement data and fewer false positives. The Sojourn takeaway Eloqua 25D isn’t a massive overhaul, it’s a maturity release. Oracle’s sharpening its AI tools, tightening up governance, and quietly setting the stage for a more secure, data-clean future. If you’re an Eloqua customer, take two actions right now : Watch the free AI training  before November 3. Audit your Salesforce integration , because if anything still runs on the native connector, it’s on borrowed time. And if you’d like help navigating either of those, that’s where Sojourn comes in. We’ll help you plan, test, and future-proof your Eloqua setup so these “small” updates don’t become big surprises later. Let's talk. Or hit the chat button... Discover our Services

Let’s start with a harsh truth: If your enterprise marketing team is still blasting generic emails, hoping for clicks, and “throwing stuff at the wall” to see what sticks, you’re doing it wrong. The old way of marketing - spray and pray - is basically a luxury you can’t afford anymore. Every wasted impression, every mis-targeted ad... well that's money slipping out the door. And worse, it’s annoying the very people you’re trying to woo. Enter Account-Based Marketing, or ABM, and specifically, Demandbase. This isn’t just another SaaS tool to “ try out. ” It’s a system that transforms marketing from a guessing game into a laser-focused revenue engine. For enterprise clients managing thousands of potential accounts, this is the difference between chaos and control. Think of Demandbase as your ABM GPS: It tells you exactly which accounts matter, when they’re ready to engage, and how best to reach them. Here’s why ignoring ABM in the enterprise space is a massive mistake. Traditional broad-based marketing assumes every lead is equally valuable. Spoiler : They aren’t. Some accounts have zero intent, zero fit, and zero chance of ever buying. Without ABM, you’re spending time and money chasing ghosts, while the accounts that actually  matter slip quietly past. It’s like trying to herd cats while blindfolded , and expecting a standing ovation. Demandbase solves this problem with intelligence. It provides actionable insights into account intent, engagement signals, and buying readiness. You’ll know not just who is visiting your website, but what they’re looking at, how serious they are, and when the timing is perfect to engage. No more cold calls that feel like spam, no more campaigns that generate vanity metrics but zero revenue. Instead, your team can focus on conversations that convert, and on nurturing accounts that are genuinely interested. Now, let’s talk alignment. Marketing and Sales often operate in silos. Marketing sends leads, sales complains they’re “ cold ,” and prospects get lost somewhere in the middle. Demandbase changes that. With account orchestration, real-time engagement tracking, and coordinated campaign management, both teams work in sync. You can see exactly which accounts are ready for outreach, which need nurturing, and which are warming up. The result is less finger-pointing, more high-quality conversations, and campaigns that feel like a well-rehearsed symphony instead of a chaotic drum circle. The personalisation aspect is where ABM, and Demandbase in particular, truly shines. Enterprise buyers are inundated with generic content, irrelevant emails, and noisy ads. Standing out is non-negotiable. Demandbase lets you deliver messaging that resonates with real pain points, business objectives, and account-specific priorities. This is not superficial “insert first name here” personalization. It’s precision targeting that turns your outreach into meaningful engagement. And when your message actually lands, prospects start seeing you not as a marketer, but as a problem solver. Reporting is another area where Demandbase leaves generic marketing in the dust. Instead of struggling with scattered metrics like opens, clicks, or impressions, you get a clear line from account engagement to revenue. You can demonstrate the ROI of your ABM efforts, show leadership how campaigns translate into closed deals, and finally silence the “ prove it ” skeptics. It’s satisfying, it’s measurable, and yes, it makes your job way easier. And here’s the thing: The benefits compound. Once you’re targeting the right accounts, engaging them with contextually relevant messaging, and aligning sales and marketing efforts, the pipeline improves dramatically. Predictable, high-quality revenue becomes the new normal. Teams gain confidence because they’re not guessing, they’re executing with intelligence. Your marketing budget finally feels justified, and your campaigns start delivering results that aren’t just “ nice to have ” but mission-critical. Let’s be brutally honest: Enterprises that haven’t adopted ABM yet are at a disadvantage. They’re stuck in the inefficient world of blanket campaigns, chasing low-value leads, and hoping for miracles. Demandbase is the antidote. It streamlines targeting, orchestrates campaigns, and provides insights that turn marketing into a revenue-generating machine. For organisations ready to stop wasting ad spend and start driving real business outcomes, Demandbase isn’t optional... it’s essential. If you’ve ever felt frustrated by missed opportunities, wasted marketing spend, or unaligned sales teams, this is your wake-up call. Stop throwing spaghetti (or if you're really un-PC diarrhoea) at the wall. Start being deliberate. Start using ABM with Demandbase. Your pipeline, your sales team, your leadership, and your sanity, will thank you. And yes, it’s okay to enjoy looking like the genius who finally got marketing right. In the end, adopting ABM isn’t just about tools, it’s about a smarter, more focused approach to enterprise growth. Demandbase makes that not only achievable but also enjoyable. If your enterprise isn’t leveraging ABM yet, you’re not just behind, you’re leaving serious revenue on the table. It’s time to change that. Discover our Services

“All-in-one.” Words that trigger instant skepticism. You can almost hear the collective groan from marketers who’ve been burned before. The phrase has been used to sell everything from microwaves to MarTech platforms, and it usually translates to: “We do a bit of everything, and none of it particularly well.” But HubSpot’s version of all-in-one is a different animal entirely. It’s not about cramming every possible feature under one roof. It’s about forcing collaboration . It’s the architectural equivalent of locking your feuding sales and marketing teams in the same room until they figure it out. And guess what? That’s exactly what most organisations need. Because if we’re being brutally honest, “alignment” is the most overused and underdelivered word in business. Every company claims to have it. Very few actually do. Let’s call the silos what they really are... Most businesses aren’t suffering from a lack of tools, they’re suffering from too many of them. Marketing’s using six different platforms just to send one campaign. Sales is logging calls in a CRM that nobody else can access. Customer success is stuck in some ticketing system that might as well be written in hieroglyphics. Then leadership wonders why the data never matches. Each department ends up building its own tech moat, and over time, those moats turn into walls. Communication dies. Accountability disappears. Everyone’s working hard, but nobody’s working together . HubSpot’s all-in-one model bulldozes those walls. It doesn’t politely ask your systems to integrate. It replaces the need for half of them. It’s not about more software; it’s about fewer excuses. When everyone works off the same source of truth, one CRM, one workflow engine, one reporting layer, you stop debating data and start fixing problems. The air clears. The finger-pointing stops. Suddenly, everyone’s rowing in the same direction. “Best of breed” is the best way to breed chaos There’s this persistent myth that serious companies need a “best of breed” MarTech stack... a Frankenstein ensemble of ultra-specialised tools that supposedly gives you a competitive edge. It sounds intelligent. It feels sophisticated. But in practice? It’s a maintenance nightmare dressed as strategy. Every “best” tool comes with its own API quirks, its own reporting logic, its own concept of what a “lead” actually is. You spend more time reconciling than marketing. Ops becomes a full-time therapist for systems that refuse to speak to each other. And when something breaks, and it always does, everyone just blames the integration. HubSpot flips that script. It’s not about having every shiny capability, it’s about having a shared foundation that actually holds. The CRM, the marketing engine, the service hub - they’re not connected by duct tape; they’re designed to speak the same language. That’s the difference between integrated  and inherently connected . The result? When marketing pushes a lead, sales sees it instantly. When a deal closes, the service team’s already prepared. When a customer raises a ticket, everyone has context. It’s not magic. It’s just what happens when you stop worshipping at the altar of “best of breed” and start building something that actually works. Data chaos kills growth Here’s a dirty little secret most companies suffer from: The majority of their data is junk. Duplicates, incomplete records, orphaned contacts from long-dead campaigns it’s digital clutter at scale. And the reason it never gets fixed? Because it’s scattered across ten different systems, owned by ten different people who all think it’s someone else’s problem. HubSpot forces the reckoning. When all your marketing, sales, and service data lives under one roof, the rot becomes visible. You can’t ignore it anymore, and that’s a good thing. Cleaning data isn’t glamorous, but it’s the single biggest productivity unlock most teams will ever experience. The irony? The very thing that makes some people wary of “all-in-one” is that you can see everything , and that is exactly why it works. The transparency hurts at first. Then it starts to heal. Accountability is the new alignment Here’s the part that really makes people uncomfortable. HubSpot doesn’t just eliminate silos, it eliminates hiding places. When you’ve got a shared platform, marketing can’t fudge numbers to look busy. Sales can’t blame “bad leads” for weak close rates. Service can’t quietly drown in tickets nobody tracks. Every team is exposed, but also empowered. The data tells the truth, and when everyone’s looking at the same truth, accountability becomes cultural. The transformation is immediate. Instead of endless status meetings, you’ve got shared dashboards. Instead of vague “alignment” sessions, you’ve got a single source of performance. The conversation shifts from “who messed up?” to “what’s next?” And that’s where speed comes from. Not from fancy automations or AI add-ons, from the absence of friction. Cohesion beats integration every time Integration is the sugar high of MarTech. It gives you the illusion of progress, until it collapses under its own weight. Cohesion is different. It’s slower, steadier, and infinitely more scalable. HubSpot’s all-in-one design doesn’t rely on 47 different data syncs to keep your business upright. It’s cohesive by design. Marketing automation, CRM, service, and reporting are all native parts of the same brain. That means when you update a contact record, that change ripples across the system instantly. When someone fills out a form, sales sees it in seconds. When support resolves an issue, marketing knows that customer is ready for re-engagement. It’s not patchwork; it’s choreography. That cohesion isn’t just a technical advantage, it’s cultural. It gives teams confidence that they’re looking at the  truth, not a  version of it. And that confidence breeds faster decisions, sharper campaigns, and cleaner execution. The cultural rewiring nobody talks about Let’s talk about the real transformation. Because yes, HubSpot simplifies your stack. Yes, it saves time and money. But the real magic is cultural. The platform doesn’t just connect systems, it connects people. It forces departments that used to operate like rival nations to share a border, a language, and a goal. It takes “silos”, those deeply ingrained behaviours that software alone can’t fix, and starves them of oxygen. Suddenly marketing is building campaigns that sales actually uses. Sales is feeding insights back to marketing in real time. Customer success is closing the loop by sharing feedback that fuels the next campaign. Everyone’s in the same ecosystem, seeing the same customers, chasing the same outcomes. That’s what alignment actually looks like. Not a quarterly meeting with too many slides... a living, breathing feedback loop powered by shared data. The new definition of “all-in-one” So let’s retire the old definition of “all-in-one.” It’s not about one platform doing everything. It’s about one platform making your teams act like one. HubSpot’s greatest strength isn’t that it has every possible feature, it’s that it creates a shared rhythm. It replaces confusion with cohesion. It turns silos into pipelines. It makes growth less about luck and more about operational clarity. And once you’ve experienced that... the simplicity, the speed, the relief of finally having your data and teams pulling in the same direction... there’s no going back. Call it all-in-one if you want. But it’s really something rarer in business software: It’s all-together. Discover our Services

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, and witness the spectacle: Mountains of customer data tumbling in from every direction, systems juggling contacts, campaigns on the high wire, and teams trying to keep everything from crashing down. The circus is thrilling… but without a ringleader, it’s chaos waiting to happen. That’s exactly what happens when businesses dive into a Customer Data Platform (CDP) without assessing their readiness first. A CDP can unify fragmented data, orchestrate personalised experiences, and generate actionable insights. But like a tightrope act without a safety net, it only works when the right foundation is in place, the people, processes, and data that make the whole show run smoothly. Before you sign a contract or line up a vendor demo, a CDP readiness assessment  helps you see whether your circus is ready for a new act. Knowing when to bring in the ringmaster A CDP isn’t a magic solution, it’s a powerful tool for businesses that are juggling multiple systems, fragmented customer data, and complex touch-points. It’s useful when you need to unify data from sales, marketing, product, and support systems; orchestrate real-time personalisation; or produce insights that drive decisions across the organisation. If your current stack already works in harmony, or if your personalisation and analytics needs are minimal, a CDP may be an unnecessary trapeze act. But if your teams are dropping leads, losing track of customer interactions, or struggling to deliver timely messages, a CDP can tame the chaos... provided the groundwork is done first. Mapping your circus floor: Current vs ideal journeys Every circus has a layout, from the centre ring to the sideshow tents. In business, your customer journey  is your circus floor. You need to know exactly where each act is taking place. Start by mapping the current journey: Every touchpoint from first contact through purchase, onboarding, retention, and expansion. Identify which systems are involved and where the gaps, delays, or misfires occur. Next, imagine your ideal performance : A smooth, coordinated flow where data streams seamlessly between systems, personalisation happens at the right moment, and insights are fed to the right teams. The gaps between current and ideal journeys highlight where the CDP, or sometimes other process improvements, can deliver the greatest impact. Use case example:  A subscription based business wants to reduce churn after trial periods. Currently, product usage, CRM data, and support tickets exist in separate tents. Without a unified view, retention campaigns are delayed, generic, or inconsistent. A properly implemented CDP can bring these acts into one ring, triggering timely outreach across email, in-app messaging, and support channels. The high-wire act of data and integrations Data is the tightrope: One misstep and everything can come crashing down. A CDP requires clean, reliable data to function. Missing identifiers, duplicates, and inconsistent consent information are the pitfalls that can derail campaigns and dashboards alike. Integrations are the trapeze swings connecting each act. CRM, eCommerce, marketing automation, and product systems must be linked reliably, ideally in real time. Otherwise, orchestrated campaigns stumble. Imagine trying to launch a VIP campaign without synchronised purchase data, the act falls flat before it begins. The ringmaster: People and governance Even the best performers need direction. A CDP without ownership is like a circus without a ringmaster: Every act is in motion, but no one knows who’s in charge. Teams need clearly defined responsibilities for data stewardship, segmentation, journey orchestration, and campaign execution. Processes and governance are the rehearsal schedules that keep acts coordinated. Standard workflows for data ingestion, validation, and campaign approvals ensure that each performance goes off without a hitch. Naming conventions, segmentation rules, and reporting standards keep everyone on the same page, preventing mix-ups and mishaps. Content, measurement, and compliance: The supporting acts Data and systems may be the main performers, but content is the acrobat. Emails, landing pages, and personalised messaging fuel the customer experience. Without prepared content to feed journeys, your automation will stumble, like a clown missing a cue. Measurement is the scoreboard in the circus tent, without it, no one knows if the show succeeded. Success metrics must be clearly defined, and dashboards should track adoption, segmentation accuracy, and campaign results. Compliance and privacy are the safety nets. Consent, privacy laws, and data security policies must be enforced at every stage. Skipping this step is like performing a high-wire act without a net, it’s a disaster waiting to happen. The roadmap to a show-stopping performance A thorough CDP readiness assessment doesn’t just catalog challenges, it creates a performance roadmap . Critical fixes, like data unification, integration reliability, and consent management, come first. Medium-priority improvements, standardised segmentation, governance, and training all follow. Finally, pilot use cases demonstrate measurable impact and prove the value of the platform. Example:  A company might start by cleaning and unifying customer data, connecting its core systems, and then running a pilot retention campaign triggered by unified insights. Each step reduces risk and ensures the platform delivers value. The Grand Finale: Are you ready to step into the ring? A CDP is a powerful performer, but only when the circus is ready. Clean data, clear processes, defined ownership, and targeted use cases are the foundations of success. Without them, the platform becomes a spectacle of confusion, wasted effort, and missed opportunities. When done right, a CDP can unify fragmented data, automate personalised journeys, and deliver actionable insights across marketing, sales, and product. But rushing in unprepared is like unleashing lions without a trained... thrilling at first glance, but dangerous in practice. Next step:  Conduct a CDP readiness assessment. Map your customer journeys, identify gaps, and create a roadmap. Only then can your CDP take centre stage and perform like the showstopper it’s meant to be. Discover our FREE CDP Readiness Checklist Discover our Services

Implementing a Marketing Automation Platform (MAP) can be one of the most transformative steps a B2B organization can take to streamline its marketing processes, improve lead management, and drive better ROI. However, the road to successful MAP implementation is not without its challenges. From poor integration with existing systems to misalignment between teams, many businesses face significant hurdles that can prevent the full potential of the MAP from being realized. In this blog, we explore the most common mistakes companies make when implementing a MAP and how to avoid them. Understanding these pitfalls can help your organization navigate the complexities of MAP implementation and ensure that your investment delivers measurable results. Poor Integration with Existing Systems Why It Goes Wrong: One of the most common and frustrating mistakes businesses make is failing to properly integrate the MAP with their existing technology stack. Most B2B companies have a complex array of systems already in place, including CRM software (like Salesforce), analytics platforms, and marketing tools. If the MAP doesn’t integrate smoothly with these systems, it can lead to data silos, broken workflows, and lost leads. Impact: Without proper integration, marketing teams may struggle to get accurate data on customer behavior, and sales teams could miss out on high-quality leads. Data inconsistencies can disrupt lead nurturing and result in missed opportunities. Solution: Ensure that your MAP is compatible with your current systems before committing to implementation. Conduct a thorough audit of your tech stack and identify any potential integration challenges early on. Work with MAP vendors or third-party experts who can build custom integrations if necessary. This upfront effort will ensure smooth data flow and align marketing and sales activities for optimal performance. Lack of Clear Strategy and Objectives Why It Goes Wrong: Many organizations invest in a MAP with the expectation that the platform will magically solve all their marketing challenges. However, without a clear strategy and well-defined objectives, businesses often end up using the platform ineffectively or underutilizing its capabilities. Impact: A lack of strategic direction can lead to fragmented or misguided campaigns, wasted resources, and suboptimal results. Marketers might implement automated workflows without a clear understanding of their goals, leading to disengaged audiences and low conversion rates. Solution: Before diving into the implementation process, define clear, measurable goals. These could include increasing lead conversion rates, improving customer segmentation, or driving more personalized campaigns. Align your MAP implementation with broader business objectives to ensure it delivers real value. Set specific KPIs and use the MAP to track progress toward those goals, adjusting tactics as necessary. Insufficient Data Cleanliness and Preparation Why It Goes Wrong: A critical part of MAP success is the quality of the data being fed into the system. Many businesses fail to properly clean and organize their data before migrating it to the new platform. This often results in duplicate records, outdated information, and poorly structured data that is difficult to use for segmentation or targeting. Impact: Poor data can render automated processes ineffective. For example, if your MAP is working with inaccurate customer information, you might send irrelevant emails to the wrong people or fail to personalize content effectively. This undermines the entire purpose of marketing automation, leading to reduced engagement and lower ROI. Solution: Prior to implementing a MAP, conduct a data audit to ensure that your data is clean, accurate, and well-organized. This includes removing duplicates, updating outdated information, and properly categorizing data for segmentation. Consider investing in data management tools or working with data specialists to ensure that your data is ready for the MAP. Inadequate Training and User Adoption Why It Goes Wrong: Even the best MAP will fail if your team doesn’t know how to use it properly. Inadequate training and lack of support can result in low user adoption, where teams struggle to utilize the platform’s full capabilities. Without the proper knowledge, employees may make errors, misuse features, or avoid using the system altogether. Impact: When team members aren’t fully trained on how to use the platform, the MAP becomes underutilized. Campaigns might be poorly executed, and opportunities for optimization or automation could be missed. This leads to frustration, reduced efficiency, and ultimately, a failure to deliver on the platform’s potential. Solution: Invest in comprehensive training and onboarding for all stakeholders. This should include in-depth sessions for both marketing teams and sales teams, covering how the MAP will support their specific workflows. Offer continuous learning resources, such as user guides, video tutorials, and FAQs, to keep employees updated. Consider working with a consultancy that can provide tailored training and support throughout the implementation phase. Failing to Align Marketing and Sales Teams Why It Goes Wrong: A MAP can significantly improve lead management, but if there is no alignment between marketing and sales teams, the platform’s impact will be limited. Often, marketing and sales have different definitions of what constitutes a "qualified" lead or how leads should be nurtured. Without clear communication and alignment, leads can fall through the cracks, and the MAP’s potential is wasted. Impact: When marketing and sales teams aren’t on the same page, the MAP will struggle to deliver high-quality, sales-ready leads. This misalignment can result in poor handoffs, wasted time, and frustration from both teams. Ultimately, marketing campaigns will underperform, and sales teams will miss out on opportunities. Solution: Establish clear communication between marketing and sales from the outset. Develop a service level agreement (SLA) that defines lead qualification criteria, the lead handoff process, and expectations for follow-up. Regular meetings between the two teams can ensure that they stay aligned and work together to optimize the lead funnel. Overcomplicating Campaigns and Automations Why It Goes Wrong: It’s easy to get carried away with the features and capabilities of a MAP, leading some businesses to overcomplicate their workflows and automations. Marketers may try to automate everything at once, creating convoluted campaigns that are difficult to manage and optimize. Impact: Overly complex campaigns can result in errors, miscommunications, and inefficiencies. When automations become too intricate, they can lead to mistakes that impact campaign performance. Additionally, over-automation can result in impersonal messaging that alienates potential customers, reducing the effectiveness of your campaigns. Solution: Start small and scale gradually. Focus on automating the most important and straightforward processes first, such as lead nurturing or email follow-ups. As you gain more experience with the MAP, you can expand automation efforts, ensuring that each campaign is optimized for maximum impact. Not Enough Focus on ROI and Measurement Why It Goes Wrong: Some organizations fail to measure the success of their MAP implementation, focusing more on the technical aspects than on how the platform is performing in terms of ROI. Without clear metrics and performance tracking, it’s difficult to optimize campaigns and prove the value of the MAP. Impact: Without proper measurement, businesses may struggle to determine whether their MAP is delivering the expected ROI. It can also be challenging to identify areas for improvement or optimization, leading to stagnant or underperforming campaigns. Solution: Establish clear KPIs before implementation, such as lead conversion rates, customer acquisition cost (CAC), and customer lifetime value (CLV). Use the MAP’s reporting and analytics features to continuously track performance, adjust campaigns, and make data-driven decisions. Underestimating Resource and Time Commitment Why It Goes Wrong: MAP implementation can be resource-intensive, requiring significant time, effort, and personnel to ensure success. Many businesses underestimate the level of commitment needed, leading to rushed or incomplete implementations and try save money by not outsourcing. Impact: Underestimating the time and resources required can result in missed deadlines, incomplete setups, and suboptimal performance from the MAP. This can cause delays, frustration, and massively wasted budget, ultimately affecting the success and ROI of the implementation. Solution: Develop a realistic project plan that outlines timelines, resource allocation, and milestones. Ensure that key stakeholders, including IT, marketing, and sales teams, are committed to the project and have the bandwidth to support it. Work with a consultancy such as Sojourn Solutions to manage the implementation and lean on their experience to produce a smooth, in depth and rapid implementation. Conclusion While implementing a Marketing Automation Platform can bring immense value to your business, the process is complex and fraught with potential pitfalls. By understanding the most common mistakes - such as poor integration, lack of strategy, and insufficient training - B2B organizations can take proactive steps to avoid these challenges and ensure a smooth implementation. Focusing on data quality, alignment between teams, and continuous measurement will help your organization realize the full potential of your MAP. And with careful planning, the right expertise, and the right support, your MAP will be a powerful tool for driving long-term success. Ready to implement your MAP? Be sure to avoid these common mistakes to ensure that your investment delivers the results you're looking for - Contact us today!

Migrating from one marketing automation platform (MAP) to another is supposed to be exciting. You’re moving into a smarter, faster, shinier home for your marketing. Better integrations, slicker automation, cleaner reporting... it’s everything you’ve been promised in those glossy vendor demos. But if you’ve ever been through it before, you’ll know the truth: MAP migration feels a lot less like a dream home makeover and a lot more like a horror film marathon. One minute you’re feeling optimistic, the next you’re trapped in a maze of broken integrations, cursed data, and mysterious errors that only appear at 2 a.m. It doesn’t have to be this way. Yes, migrating platforms will always be a complex project, but it doesn’t need to be a bloodbath. By recognising the real monsters that creep into migrations and knowing how to handle them, you can turn the horror story into a thriller with a happy ending. Act one: The hidden monsters Every good horror movie starts with a calm, happy scene. The new house looks perfect, the family is smiling, and nothing could possibly go wrong. Then the lights start flickering. In MAP migrations, the flickering lights usually come in the form of data. On the surface, everything looks manageable, a few hundred thousand contacts, some well-used nurture programs, a couple of reports that leadership “must have.” But the moment you start digging, you discover the graveyard. Years of duplicate contacts, junk leads with fake email addresses, ancient campaigns that nobody has touched since 2017, and integration fields that no one can even explain anymore. Drag all of that into your shiny new platform, and you’re not upgrading, you’re just importing ghosts. And these aren’t friendly, Casper-style ghosts. They’re the kind that break campaigns, confuse your sales team, and make every report look suspicious. Then comes the timeline. Somewhere in the business, a decision gets made: The new system has to be live by “end of quarter.” Never mind that nobody has mapped processes yet, tested integrations, or trained the team. The deadline is set, and now the project feels less like a thoughtful transition and more like a slasher flick: lots of running, lots of screaming, and a very real chance that something gets left behind in the dark. And finally, there’s the team. They’ve just about mastered the quirks of your old MAP, only to be told that everything is changing. The way they built campaigns? Different. The reports they relied on? Rebuilt. Even the login screen is enough to throw them off balance. If the change isn’t handled carefully, adoption drops like the classic horror movie character who wanders off alone into the woods. Act two: Rewriting the script Here’s where you take control of the storyline. You can’t stop a MAP migration from being challenging, but you can stop it from turning into a horror show. The first step is accepting that a migration isn’t just a technical project. It’s a strategic reset. Treat it as an opportunity to tidy up, reimagine, and improve, rather than simply dragging the past into a new box. Think of it as a chance to burn the haunted house down and rebuild it properly, without the creaky floorboards and suspicious noises. Start with the data. Yes, cleaning and standardising your database feels tedious, but it’s the marketing equivalent of an exorcism. Deduplicate, normalise, and throw out the records that no longer serve you. Don’t wait until after you’ve migrated to find the demons, by then, they’ll already be making themselves at home. Next, map out your processes. Too many migrations fail because businesses try to force their old ways of working into a new system. But different platforms have different strengths and weaknesses. If your old MAP required three steps to build a campaign and your new one only requires one, don’t waste time recreating the same clunky workflow. Use the migration to redesign how you work. Testing is the unsung hero of every successful migration. The marketing team that launches blind is like the character who ignores the warning signs and goes down into the basement anyway. Don’t do it. Test campaigns in parallel, validate data syncs, and make sure integrations are actually firing before you flip the final switch. And then there’s your team, the people who are going to be living in this system every day. Migration isn’t just about migrating assets, it’s about migrating confidence. Train them early, let them practice in sandboxes, and communicate why this change is happening. When they see how the new platform makes their lives easier, they’ll stop seeing it as a monster and start seeing it as a weapon. Act three: Surviving the sequel Here’s the thing: Horror movies always have sequels. Your migration project doesn’t end on the day you go live. In fact, that’s just the beginning. The first few months are about survival. Expect hiccups, expect confusion, and expect the occasional last-minute panic when a campaign doesn’t quite behave as expected. That’s normal. The trick is to treat the post-migration phase as part of the project, not an afterthought. Build in time for optimisation, additional training, and process refinements. And remember: your new MAP isn’t just a new tool, it’s a new opportunity. Cleaner data means sharper segmentation. Faster campaign builds mean quicker time-to-market. Better integrations mean sales and marketing alignment that actually sticks. If you invest in ongoing improvement, you won’t just avoid the monsters, you’ll start writing a whole new kind of story. The happy ending So, yes, migrating marketing automation platforms can feel like stepping straight into a horror film. There will be scares, there will be stress, and there may even be a few jump-out-of-your-chair moments when a campaign suddenly vanishes into thin air. But with the right preparation, pacing, people and consultancy, you don’t have to be the character who gets picked off early. You can be the survivor... the one who makes it out stronger, smarter, and ready for whatever comes next. Because here’s the truth: the ghosts of bad data, broken processes, and unclear strategy don’t have to follow you into your new system. Exorcise them now, and you’ll not only survive your migration, you’ll thrive in it. And that’s the kind of ending that doesn’t just close a horror movie. It starts a whole new chapter. Discover our Services