Why the future of marketing ops is GTM product management, not GTM engineering

When I wrote about the emerging GTM engineer role, I saw a role that is very much part of marketing operations. But I didn't really see it as the future of marketing operations. Neither does Mike Rizzo. Rizzo is the founder and CEO of Marketing Ops, a community for marketing operations professionals. What does he see as the evolution of the marketing operations role? He calls it GTM Product Management.

GTM Engineer is not the goal, GTM Product Manager is

Rizzo argues that to be effective in marketing operations, you must first understand marketing automation and its capabilities. Within that, there are various pillars, including campaign operations, data operations, and platform operations, among others. He says you don’t need to be an expert in everything, but you need to understand functionally how things work so you can help facilitate the architecture of those things.

At the same time that they are learning about the technology landscape, marketing operations (marketing ops) people also need to develop a broad understanding of Go-to-Market (GTM) motions. Rizzo says that they have to translate the unique language and GTM hypothesis of someone's business to the capabilities of the tools they are given or want to invest in:

There should be an equivalent of, let's call it a CIO, CTO product person that's thinking about how technology applies to your business and how you want to enter markets and sell.

This is the job of the GTM Product Manager, and it's the role marketing ops people should aspire to, Rizzo believes. 

When martech emerged, there was a rush to buy the tools. Then it became all about figuring out how to make them work. Things got siloed fast.

Rizzo suggests GTM Engineers are doing the same thing today. They are working with new capabilities in the market. They are taking over and trying to figure out how to make stuff happen, but it's all still happening in silos.

Some people argue that this work falls within the purview of Revenue Operations (RevOps). Rizzo counters. 'Yes, and no': 

We're all still championing the idea that RevOps as an umbrella owns the idea of an alignment between CS, sales, and marketing across the board, particularly in the tech sector. But the reality is that's not what happens. And truthfully, I think RevOps, from my CEO seat, is so much more than just the technology that is sort of like outward-facing. RevOps, I feel, is still very internally focused. It's like I want to know what all of you are doing in here, and I want to be able to report on how things are going. But it isn't necessarily like, how does the technology enable us to go to market?

RevOps also originates largely from sales and is still often skewed towards sales-related motions. Rizzo reckons it's also difficult to find RevOps professionals who have a healthy understanding of how a technology ecosystem and tech stack work together for GTM motions. Rizzo believes this is fundamentally different from what he's talking about with the GTM Product Manager.

The GTM Product Manager stems from modern marketing and doesn’t happen without technology. Someone needs to own the technology like a product.

Rizzo explains that a few years ago, organizations were hiring for a Chief of Staff; someone who acts as a liaison between what the executives wanted to accomplish and the teams that make it happen"

I think that line of thinking is the right direction for this type of expert. I think they do need to be involved in as many of the conversations at the like sort of seat at the table, proverbially, at the top level, to basically be that arm that helps enable the business to go to market, and does it in a way that isn't biased towards someone's goals. It's in service of the business's goals broadly. When it's handed over to each independent department, then things happen and misalignment happens, and one's trying to fill the top of the funnel while the other is trying to actually close deals

This lack of clarity around ownership becomes even more critical in the age of AI.

AI is only exacerbating the need for this role

In a SaaS company, you wouldn't build a piece of technology without a systems architect, an engineer, and a builder, Rizzo said. But we seem to think GTM systems don't require that. Rizzo thinks they do.

AI is pushing for this requirement and for someone to own the product because AI is enabling everyone’s ability to do things. The lower barrier to entry is great, but organizations don’t need the chaos it brings.

The GTM Product Manager will ask the questions. What are we going to do with this thing? What goals are we trying to achieve? They become the translation layer that ensures that the product built matches the goals, Rizzo says:

I've been having conversations with folks about this consumption-based pricing structure that's happening in the market with the credit systems and stuff like that. And it's really throwing everybody for a loop on, well, how do I plan for this? The CFO is going ‘I gave you a budget, but you're telling me that it could be more or less. How am I supposed to anticipate that?’ 

And the reality is, you are building a very specific product. And so the more specific you can be, the more in control you can be of those costs....We're used to buying products where you pay one price and you get access to all the tools, and you use 10% of them. And it's this abundance problem. So this new consumption-based pricing stuff that we're seeing in the market is actually a really good thing for both the companies that are leveraging the pricing model, but also for the market in general to slow down and think seriously about how do I do a quality build for my business's goals?

What does it take to become a GTM Product Manager?

Rizzo outlines four elements of the GTM Product Manager role.

First, you need to understand the architecture of the platforms, object orientation, and general technology principles.

You also need to understand the broader T-shaped marketer pieces (GTM in general). What is a T-shaped marketer? It’s someone who has a good understanding and broad skills across marketing as a whole, and deep, expert-level skills in a couple of areas

The third element is the ability to determine which features you need to deploy into your tech stack to enable people to accomplish their tasks (both internal users and customers).

The final element is understanding how a business recognizes revenue and the end outcomes it aims to achieve.

Together, these four elements bring marketing operations people into the profession of product management. Add skills around user research, project management, and how to scope and define a roadmap of features alongside developers.

Rizzo says that if you ask someone at the C-Suite level or a board member who is in charge of the GTM tech stack, no one really knows. It's not the CIO or CTO. Most of the time, it dissolves into sales owning the sales tech stack and marketing owning the martech stack, and so on.

Where does this role sit? Rizzo said that every organization will be different, but a natural place to sit is as the product owner for a RevOps organization, acting as a peer to help drive executive-level execution.

Building a community of marketing operations professionals

The Marketing Ops community began as a Slack group, providing Rizzo with a sense of community and support in his marketing operations role:

It was always meant to be a place where we could talk freely and be sort of tech-agnostic in terms of our background, right? It wasn't just about any of the major platforms. It was really about the vocation and the role, and the whole point was to try to figure out how to help you not feel so alone.

Today, there are over 3500 people in the Slack community, 15,000 subscriptions to the Marketing Ops overall database, and a membership model that brings marketing ops people together in niche categories within the broad marketing operations category. They host workshops, meetups, local chapters, a podcast, a newsletter, conduct research, and host the conference MOps-Apalooza (this is the last year for the 3-day conference).

With the community now thriving, the next logical step is formalizing the profession.

Next step: Designing a certification for MOps professionals

Rizzo wants to take things to the next level by creating a GTM Product Manager certification. He wants to create for marketing operations what the Project Management Institute created for project managers (i.e., the PMP certification). This certification will be technology agnostic and will help people understand the value of having a certified GTM Product Manager in their organization.

"My argument is that in Marketing Ops, while you may get your start being an expert in HubSpot or Marketo or whatever platform, if you really fall in love with it, you start to look at 'how do I build out all these capabilities across all these technologies to enable a buyer journey that's focused on the success of the outcomes we're looking to achieve as a business?' And my argument is that you're a product manager, and your job is to stitch together lots of different products.

We're trying to help you create a very clear path towards a strategic impact, so that when someone at the C-suite level or the board level is asked the question, who's in charge of your go-to-market tech stack, they know it's somebody that comes out of Marketing Ops as a background."

Rizzo concludes that if you combine the four areas of expertise a GTM Product Manager must have (covered above), you can create a series of levels for a certification. Complete all the levels, and you become a certified GTM Product Manager.

The certification is still in the planning process, but Rizzo is talking to a lot of companies and marketing operations professionals to ensure they are developing something that will help these professionals grow in their roles and take on greater responsibility.

My take

In my article on the GTM Engineer, I closed with this:

Is the GTM Engineer a brand new role? I don’t believe it is. But I do believe it’s a new way to talk about highly-skilled marketing and sales operations people who specialize in certain aspects of go-to-market strategies.

There are likely many marketing operations professionals who aspire to be known as GTM Engineers, and that's a good thing. We need specialists who can dive deep into challenges and figure them out.

But I agree with Rizzo that it's not the evolution of the marketing ops role for everyone. For many, growing into the role of GTM Product Manager is the ultimate career goal (although, yes, it could lead to higher positions, such as CMO or CTO, for some).

Organizations need professionals who have that understanding of the technology, coupled with an understanding of the business and its goals, if they want to build the best go-to-market tech stack. They need to take it seriously and bring the technology out of the silos that currently exist. I'm excited to see where Rizzo takes the certification and how this role starts to emerge as a career path, because it is the right one for marketing operations.