How To Do a Marketing Tech Audit

Marketing overspending in AEC firms often starts because tools are bought to solve isolated problems rather than support a shared strategy, vendors sell features instead of fit, and teams lack time or expertise to properly vet software.

To run a tech audit, I recommend listing every tool the firm pays for (using internal records or pulling two years of subscriptions from finance), then evaluating each tool with three questions:

1. whether more than one person uses it weekly,

2. whether it connects to other tools in the stack, and

3. whether another existing tool can do the same job (e.g., CRM email vs. separate email platform).

The best stack is the one consistently used, then expanded only after outgrowing it.