How to Build a Full-Stack Marketing Skill Set

A playbook for mid-level pros ready to bridge media, marketing & product.

Growth isn’t about adding another channel or “going AI.”

It’s about engineering a system where creative, data and product work as one—and where every dollar of spend can beat your company’s weighted-average cost of capital.

This a guide to help you:

• map your stack like a CFO,

• learn the right skills in the right order,

• run campaigns end-to-end with investor-grade rigour, and

• prove long-term value in every board conversation.

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Mindset Before Skillset

Prediction: By 2027 the highest-paid marketers will brief creative, query BigQuery, write onboarding UX and defend budgets in discounted-cash-flow terms.

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2. MadTech System—Phase-by-Phase Snapshot

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🧭 Phase 1 – Discover & Map (Day 1-2)

Step 1: Identify Tool Roles

1. Dump every tool into a single sheet.

2. Tag by lifecycle stage (Awareness→Loyalty).

3. Assign one owner per tool.

4. Write a one-line job (“routes activated_user to ad audiences”).

5. List inputs, outputs and dependencies.

6. Flag duplicates in red.

ETA 4-8 h → strategic clarity and stack bloat exposed.

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Step 2: Draw the Stack Map

1. Open Miro/Lucidchart.

2. Lay out lifecycle swim-lanes horizontally.

3. Drag tools under stages, colour-code by team.

4. Draw arrows for data flows—solid (real-time) vs dashed (batch).

5. Annotate each trigger (“Churn event → suppress ads”).

6. Share with Product, Marketing, Data for sign-off.

ETA 1 day → single source-of-truth blueprint.

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🔗 Phase 2 – Build Interoperability (Day 3-7)

Step 3: Wire Feedback Loops

1. Enable server-side conversions (GA4 + GTM Server or FB CAPI).

2. Sync CRM outcomes (MQL/SQL) to Meta & Google offline events.

3. Feed purchase value & LTV tiers back to ad platforms.

4. Build lookalikes of high-LTV users; exclude churners.

5. Set Slack alerts if data sync > 24 h fails.

ETA 1-2 days → lower CAC, higher ROAS, faster optimisation.

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Step 4: Track High-Signal Events

1. Draft a 5-event taxonomy (viewed_pricing, started_checkout, etc.).

2. Implement via Segment/RudderStack; QA in GA4 DebugView.

3. Pipe events to ESP & ads for triggers/exclusions.

4. Dashboard event volume vs targets.

5. Review monthly; add or retire events.

ETA 1-2 days → personalisation and retargeting based on intent, not pageviews.

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📊 Phase 3 – Activate Growth Levers (Week 2)

Step 5: Model Attribution & LTV

1. Export 12-month spend + conversions.

2. Build a 40-20-40 weighted attribution sheet.

3. Calculate 90-day LTV by cohort.

4. Compute payback = CAC ÷ LTV.

5. Reallocate budget from highest payback lag to lowest.

6. Present a one-slide “Money Map” to CFO.

ETA 3-4 days → budget tied to profit, not vanity.

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🛠 Phase 4 – Growth Operating Model (Week 3)

Step 6: Lean, Lifecycle-Driven Stack

1. Group tools by stage; add cost & ROI columns.

2. Colour-code: green = high return, red = waste/questionable.

3. Retire or replace reds.

4. Draft a 90-day roadmap: adds, kills, upgrades.

5. Log decisions in Notion; share with Finance.

ETA 1 day → lower SaaS spend, higher signal-to-noise.

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Step 7: Monthly Growth Stack Ritual

1. 60-min meeting w/ Marketing, Product, Data, RevOps.

2. Review dashboards: funnel drop-offs, LTV, tool health.

3. Log wins/friction → ICE-rank next tests.

4. Assign owners & deadlines; update map quarterly.

ETA 2 h/month → continuous, cross-functional optimisation.

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Frameworks to Run Campaigns End-to-End

AIDA → TARE Remix

Trigger • Action • Reward • Evidence.
Adds an instant win (Reward) and proof (Evidence) for short-attention buyers.

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ICE Prioritisation

Score experiments by Impact × Confidence × Ease; ship the highest ICE first.

Boost Confidence weighting when budgets tighten.

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Bow-Tie Funnel

Left loop (Acquisition) → Knot (Value Realised) → Right loop (Retention).
Shows why brand spend survives CFO scrutiny: downstream cashflows.

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Balfour’s 4 Fits

Ensure Product–Market, Product–Channel, Channel–Model, Model–Market “click” before scaling.

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North-Star + Input Tree

One North-Star metric (e.g. Net Retained Revenue) with daily levers mapped underneath for instant accountability.

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8-Week Skill-Sprint Roadmap

Week 1 – Customer Insight Deep Dive

Run 5–10 JTBD interviews → rewrite homepage H1 → aim for +10 % demo clicks.

Week 2 – Funnel & Payback Math

Build a 90-day payback sheet, flag any channel > 120 day payback.

Week 3 – Lifecycle Automation

Insert a triggered “90-second quick-start” email → target +10 % 30-day activation.

Week 4 – Event Instrumentation

Ship 5 events via Segment → QA in GA4 → feed activated_user to ads.

Week 5 – Paid Creative Testing

Launch 3-angle UGC test on Meta → kill loser, iterate winner.

Week 6 – Attribution Dashboard

Link offline conversions → Looker Studio blended CAC vs LTV → 15-min CFO read-out.

Week 7 – LTV-Driven Reallocation

Pause bottom-quartile campaigns, move budget to highest-LTV lookalikes.

Week 8 – System Demo

Present stack map + ROI wins → secure next-quarter budget.

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Real-World Inspiration: Intercom

Source: Intercom: The ultimate marketing technology stack

“Buy for strategy, not features.”

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Lean Starter Stack (< AU$500/mo)

• Meta & TikTok Ads (AU$100–200)

• GA4 + GTM (Free)

• HubSpot Free / Encharge (Free–$80)

• Customer.io / MailerLite (AU$20–50)

• Segment Free Tier (Free)

• Zapier/Make (AU$20+)

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🛠 5 No-BS Fast Wins

1. Push offline conversions to ad platforms.

2. Trigger onboarding & retargeting from one event source.

3. Use a simple 40-20-40 attribution model—better than perfect-later.

4. Kill any tool without an owner or KPI.

5. Hold a monthly cross-team stack review.

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📥 Grab the Toolkit

Comment “SkillStack” for:

• Notion Stack Tracker