How to Choose a Marketing Automation & Customer Engagement Platform: Insights from 5 Years of Enterprise RFPs
Over the years I’ve ran multiple MAP, CEP and CDP RFPs for organisations that were: lacking the right tools to deliver their marketing strategy, didn’t get ROI on their existing platforms, and missing the technical capabilities to efficiently automate campaigns, customer journeys and unify customer data. The MarTech landscape in 2025-2026 is enormous, with more than 15k platforms to choose from. How do you find, compare and select the right one, make a decision? Selecting the right platform is exactly where most businesses struggle. With overlapping features, flashy sales messaging, convoluted costs for features and rapidly evolving roadmaps, the choice is rarely obvious. I wish there were a simple answer, a – here it is, go with Tool XYZ, it does it all. The realistic answer boils down to:
There is no universal ‘best’ platform - only the best platform for your business.
I’ve seen firsthand that the “best” platform is never the same for any two companies. Choosing the right platform is as individual as your business problems, propositions, strategy and systems architecture.
Across industries, five factors consistently define which platform is the right match:
1. Existing Technology Stack
Your CRM, data warehouse, CDP, CMS, analytics tools, CS, eComm, and AI strongly influence compatibility.
2. Team Capability & Operating Model
SQL-heavy platform? Marketer-friendly UI? Real-time transactions data and customer profile enrichments? Which marketing channels are you planning to execute your campaigns on? Different platforms suit different teams.
3. Business Pain Points
Start with your challenges. What problem does the platform need to solve? What are your use cases? For example:
Slow-to-launch and manual campaigns
Lack of cross-channel capabilities for a unified customer journey
Data living in silos
Inability to personalise beyond email
4. Budget & Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
Licensing is only the beginning. Factor in:
Implementation
Support costs
Data ingestion/processing fees
Required add-ons
5. Future Growth Trajectory
Choose not just for today, but for where you want your customer experience to be in 3–5 years. This also includes the cost to scale – as your business grows, extrapolate now what the cost structure for your chosen platform looks like so that you future-proof your decision.
The Value of a Well-Run RFP
From my experience, one pattern is clear:
A strong RFP aligns your organisation, filters the market and presents you the platform that fits your use cases and solves your marketing challenges.
A good RFP will:
Define your strategic goals, pain points and marketing use cases
Do a thorough requirements analysis of functional and technical must-haves
Clarify data and tech requirements
Map your data flows and integration needs
Stress-test vendor claims
Compare platforms consistently
Align marketing, data, engineering, legal, procurement and finance
Cut through the noise and present you with a good-fit shortlist of systems
Evaluate fit and rank the shortlisted platforms based on your requirements
Provide a best-fit recommendation for your business
This level of structure and detail dramatically reduces risk and improves decision confidence.
Conclusion
Ultimately, there is no single “best” platform - only the one that fits your organisation’s data, capabilities, customer needs and future vision. A well-structured RFP helps cut through the noise and ensures vendors speak to your realities, not generic feature lists.
If your team is looking to make a confident, future-proof choice, taking a thoughtful, evidence-based and unbiased approach will always pay off. A well-run RFP goes beyond procurement: it is a strategic step in shaping your organisation’s future customer capability, providing the foundation to bring your marketing use cases to life.