Martech Stack Evaluation

Evaluate Your Martech Stack. Get a Real Score.

The first scorecard built for Martech stack evaluation. Five dimensions, deterministic scoring, an exportable report. Find the redundancies, single points of failure, and freshness gaps you didn’t know you had — or hand it to a martech architect: done-for-you evaluations available.

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Five dimensions that predict stack outcomes

Each scored 0–100 with reasons. The composite tells you where your stack sits against best practice.

Dimension 1

Identity Coherence

Do you have a unified profile, or are you stitching together GA4 client IDs, Braze user IDs, and CDP anonymous IDs in three different tools?

What we read: tools tagged as identity resolution, profile store, or CDP. Connections to them from data sources.

Dimension 2

Data Flow Direction

Event-driven, batch-pull, or hybrid? Stacks that look modern but operate on nightly batches behave very differently from streaming ones — and break in different ways.

What we read: edge integration mode (batch/realtime/streaming) and frequency.

Dimension 3

Capability Redundancy

Are you paying for the same capability in three tools? Almost every stack has at least one duplicated capability. We surface them with the contract value attached.

What we read: vendor capability taxonomy (371 mappings across your tools).

Dimension 4

Governance Posture

Consent management present? Audit trails wired in? Department ownership mapped? Or is the stack one departure away from being uncontrolled?

What we read: presence of governance-category tools, department coverage, ownership gaps.

Dimension 5

Freshness

How many tools are tagged "Decommission" or "Sunsetting"? How many haven’t had a connection update in 6+ months? Stacks rot quietly.

What we read: lifecycle stage, last-modified timestamps, tag overlay.

Composite

Stack DNA Score

A single 0–100 number with letter grade. Useful for board updates and procurement business cases — and to track improvement over time.

Plus the Solar System overlay: a radial visualization that maps each tool by orbit (criticality) and distance (data flow).

The Solar System overlay

The same diagram, rendered as a radial map. Most-critical tools in the centre, least-critical at the edge. A way to see your stack’s gravity — which tools hold everything together, and which ones could quietly disappear.

☀️

Core (centre)

Identity, CDP, warehouse. Lose these and the stack stops.

🪐

Middle orbit

Activation channels, analytics, governance. Important, replaceable.

🌑

Outer orbit

Specialty tools, edge cases. Useful but optional.

Available on every plan

Free shows the score. Pro adds the breakdown, Solar System overlay, and PDF export.

Free

Composite Stack DNA score + headline letter grade. Recompute on save.

Pro

All five dimension breakdowns + Solar System overlay + PDF scorecard export.

Team+

Track DNA over time, set targets per team, alert when score drops past a threshold.

Or — want the full evaluation done for you?

Stack evaluation by a martech architect

Matthew Niederberger — 20+ years in Martech architecture, founder of Martech Stack Builder. Two-week fixed-price engagement: a scored DNA report with human commentary, a redundancy + SPOF analysis, and a 90-day action plan you can take to your CFO.

See the audit service Book a scoping call

2-week engagement

✓ Scored Stack DNA report
✓ Redundancy + SPOF analysis
✓ 90-day action plan
✓ MSB workspace (12 months)
✓ 60-min readout call

Frequently Asked Questions

What does Stack DNA actually measure?

A composite score across five architectural dimensions: identity (do you have a unified profile?), data flow direction (is it event-driven or batch-pull?), redundancy (are you paying for the same capability twice?), governance posture (consent + audit), and freshness (are tools used or decommissioned in name only?). Each dimension is scored 0–100 with explanations.

Where does the data come from?

Your diagram itself. Every node carries category, capabilities, software palette type, and ring placement. Every edge carries integration mode, protocol, frequency, and criticality. Stack DNA reads the graph and applies the scoring algorithms — no extra data entry required.

How is this different from "stack maturity"?

Maturity asks "are you doing the things modern stacks do?" — a checklist. DNA asks "what is the shape of your stack and what does that shape predict?" — pattern detection. Maturity tells you what to buy. DNA tells you what you already are.

Can I share the scorecard externally?

Yes. Export Stack DNA as a PDF report — useful for procurement business cases, board updates, or M&A due diligence. Pro and above.

Does this work for partial stacks?

Yes, with caveats. We score what we see. A 10-node stack gets a real score but with lower confidence. Stack Intelligence will flag "we couldn’t evaluate X dimension because we couldn’t see your Y tools."

Is this an analyst report or a real metric?

A real metric. The scoring is deterministic — same diagram in, same score out. We publish the rubric so you can argue with it.

Score your stack in 30 seconds

Free to try. Build a diagram, get a Stack DNA score, see where your architecture really sits.

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No credit card required. Free plan available.