Why CMOs should stop chasing best-of-breed Martech and start buying best-aligned

The article argues that martech buying should shift from chasing “best-of-breed” features to choosing technologies that are best aligned to an organization’s industry, maturity, and operating model. Research across 988 stacks shows revenue outperformers invest differently by category—some tools are feature-driven, others depend more on implementation maturity—so CIOs and technology leaders should expect stronger ROI from stack rationalization, capability alignment, and disciplined governance rather than feature accumulation. AI is further increasing the need for alignment because most organizations are using it to augment existing SaaS stacks, with some selectively replacing software where AI can do the job better and cheaper.