The principle: fewer tools, deeper integration
Every year the martech landscape grows and every year marketing teams add tools faster than they remove them. The result: disconnected data, duplicated workflows, and a stack that costs $15K/month but produces insights no better than a spreadsheet.
Our philosophy is the opposite. We’d rather see a company running three tools at 90% capability than ten tools at 20% capability. Stack complexity is almost always a symptom of unclear process — not a driver of performance.
The core stack (seed to Series A)
CRM + Marketing Automation: HubSpot (Marketing Hub + CRM)
We recommend HubSpot for almost every company under $30M ARR. Not because it’s perfect — it’s not — but because the combination of CRM, marketing automation, sales pipeline, and reporting in one platform removes the integration overhead that kills smaller teams. The ROI from having everything in one place, with one data model, is enormous.
Configuration matters more than the platform. A poorly configured HubSpot is worse than a spreadsheet. We build all client HubSpot setups with: defined lifecycle stages, an agreed MQL definition, proper UTM tracking, deal stage probability calibrated to actual close rates, and a clean contact property structure.
Intent Data: Apollo.io or Clay
For prospecting and SDR outreach, we use Apollo for most clients — strong data coverage for B2B, built-in sequencing, and clean HubSpot sync. For more sophisticated ABM programmes with enrichment needs, Clay is increasingly our tool of choice. The enrichment workflows Clay enables (pulling LinkedIn data, job change signals, funding triggers) are genuinely powerful for targeted outbound.
SEO & Content: Ahrefs + Surfer SEO
Ahrefs for keyword research, competitive analysis, and backlink monitoring. Surfer for on-page content optimisation before publish. Combined cost: ~$300/month. ROI from getting SEO-driven content ranking properly: hard to overstate for B2B SaaS with long sales cycles where buyers research heavily before engaging.
Ads: LinkedIn Campaign Manager + Google Ads
For B2B SaaS, LinkedIn is the most reliably effective paid channel for targeting by job title, company, and seniority. It’s expensive (CPCs of $8–$15 are normal) but the audience quality justifies it for deals with ACV above $15K. Google Ads is used primarily for branded search and competitor terms — not for broad demand generation where the intent signal is weaker.
The stack additions at Series A and beyond
Attribution: HubSpot attribution + manual multi-touch model
We resist adding a dedicated attribution tool until $10M+ ARR. Before that point, the data volume doesn’t justify the tool cost, and HubSpot’s attribution reporting (with proper UTM hygiene) is sufficient for channel-level decisions. What we do build is a manual multi-touch attribution model in a Google Sheet — first touch, last touch, and linear — reviewed monthly with sales leadership.
Sales Intelligence: Bombora or G2 Buyer Intent
Intent data signals from Bombora or G2 start to add real value once you have enough volume to act on them. For companies running ABM, layering intent signals on top of your ICP account list creates a meaningful priority stack for SDR outreach. We typically add this at Series A when the SDR team is large enough to action the signals.
Analytics: Google Analytics 4 + Looker Studio
GA4 for web analytics, Looker Studio for executive dashboards. We build a Looker Studio template for every client that pulls from HubSpot, GA4, and ad platforms — giving the CEO a single page with pipeline, CAC, channel performance, and MQL-to-SQL conversion. Built in 2 hours. Reviewed in 10 minutes weekly.
What we don’t recommend (at early stage)
- Salesforce before $15M ARR — the admin overhead and configuration cost typically doesn’t justify the capability at this stage
- Marketo before Series B — powerful but complex; most seed/Series A teams don’t have the ops resource to configure and maintain it properly
- Dedicated ABM platforms (Demandbase, 6sense) before $20M ARR — the account volume and data sophistication usually isn’t there yet
- More than one CRM — full stop. If sales has Salesforce and marketing has HubSpot and they’re “integrated”, you have a data reconciliation problem waiting to explode
Stack management as a discipline
Twice a year, every client engagement reviews the full martech stack: what’s being used, what’s not, what’s duplicated, and what’s missing. Tools that aren’t producing measurable output get cut. This audit typically saves $2K–$5K/month in tools that were on auto-renew and hadn’t been used in 6 months.