“Dad working on martech” portrait by Jordan Brinker
Hey, my friends.
This February marks 18 years that I’ve been writing chiefmartec. Over 1,000 articles published. Hundreds of speaking engagements online and in-person. All on the topic of martech, a field I’m credited with helping pioneer. (I have embraced — albeit with amusement — the sobriquet of the “Godfather of Martech” that Ad Age tagged me with. Let’s A/B test an offer they can’t refuse…)
Surprisingly, all of this — including 15 years of charting the eye-watering marketing technology landscape, launching the original MarTech Conference, publishing the international best-seller Hacking Marketing, hosting the Stackie Awards, co-authoring the annual State of Martech report series, and more — has always been my side hustle, my passion project, my labor of love.
My “real” profession was actually building martech. At the time I started chiefmartec in 2008, I was the co-founder and CTO of ion interactive, a SaaS platform for “no-code” interactive content. After successfully exiting ion in 2017, I immediately jumped into a new role as VP platform ecosystem at HubSpot, building the company’s technology partner ecosystem from the ground up.
This past September, 8 years later, I decided to leave HubSpot. It had been the experience of a lifetime — thank you, Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah. But I felt it in my bones: it was time for something new. (By the way, the person I turned the reins over to, Kelly Sarabyn, is an extraordinary partnerships leader to follow.)
But what would my next adventure be?
Before rushing into something else, I decided to take the rest of 2025 to step back, reflect, and consider a broader set of possibilities. I’ve always found that I do my best thinking by actually doing things. So I leaned into my chiefmartec work and took on a few research projects and advisory clients. I figured that would be a great vantage point from which to choose my next mission.
And a funny thing happened. I fell head-over-heels in love with wearing this analyst and advisor hat full-time. I mean, I’d always loved the work (the “passion” in passion project). But being able to focus entirely on it, from the wee hours of the morning through late into the night was an invigorating delight.
As it is with love, the answer is often right in front of you.
So I’m going all-in on chiefmartec.
And what a time to be doing this! Marketing and martech are going through a profound transformation with AI. So much potential for innovation. Yet so much uncertainty. So much noise. So many challenges. Gartner’s Hype Cycle is in hyperdrive, and Martec’s Law has everyone stretching in very uncomfortable contortions.
I want to help.
As part of this, I’m moving most of my writing to this new newsletter platform, Beehiiv. This is my first delivery through them, so if you’re actually reading this — whew — kudos to them. I’ll be increasing my frequency of posts from approximately monthly to approximately weekly. I’ll be sticking with my mantra of quality over quantity, so out of respect for your inbox, I’ll only write when I have something meaningful to say.
I’ve got a few in-depth research reports that I’ll be shipping over the next couple of months that I’m eager to share with you. And my co-author Frans Riemersma and I are already deep in our work for the big State of Martech 2026 that will be released in May. (Thank you to our sponsors GrowthLoop, Hightouch, Knak, MoEngage, Pega, Progress, and SAS.)
And there might even be a little chiefmartec micro-app project on the horizon, thanks to the irresistible charm of Claude Code.
Okay, that’s my update. The next messages you’ll get from me will actually have some substance about martech again, I promise! In the meantime, if you want to nudge a colleague or two to subscribe to the groovy new newsletter.chiefmartec.com, I’d be grateful.
Thank you for being on the journey with me,
Scott
