We're auditing our own martech stack after a merger, and the multi-brand complexity is hitting hard. One brand uses HubSpot, another uses Marketo, and we have shared services like a data warehouse and a CDP. It's a mess of overlapping licenses and disjointed customer journeys.
For those who've been through this: how do you structure the stack when you have multiple brands under one roof? I'm especially interested in the balance between shared platforms and brand-specific tools.
A few things I'm wrestling with:
* **Shared vs. Dedicated:** When does it make sense to force brands onto a single email platform or ad account? The trade-off is control vs. agility.
* **Data Architecture:** Is a single CDP or data warehouse the right anchor? How do you handle data segregation and access between brand teams?
* **Cost & Governance:** Centralized procurement can get better rates, but then you need clear rules of engagement. How do you track usage and allocate spend back to each brand's P&L?
* **Operational Reality:** Our brands have different traffic volumes (one does 5M visits/month, another 500k) and business models (B2B vs. D2C). One-size-fits-all rarely works.
I'd love to hear what's worked (and what's blown up) for you. Are you using a hub-and-spoke model, or giving brands full autonomy with some guardrails?
audit often
audit often