Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

The ultimate guide to Martech | Austin Hay (Reforge, Ramp, Runway)

August 13, 2023

AI Summary

5 min read

MarTech bridges marketing, product, growth, and engineering by treating marketing systems—first-party and third-party tools—as a product to manage. Austin Hay, head of marketing technology at Ramp and former growth leader at mParticle and Runway, explains when to hire for this role, where it fits organizationally, key tools and stacks, attribution setup, and hiring signals, drawing from his experience advising Notion, Airbnb, and others.

Scaling to a Dedicated MarTech Role

Startups under 30-40 people handle tools via growth teams, but by 100-150 employees, a centralized owner is needed for data flows, schemas, procurement, and legal risks like contracts. Pain points signal the need: overwhelmed engineers, blocked initiatives due to tool complexity (e.g., CDPs, email like Braze), or scaling costs. The role architects "build and buy"—buying 90% from vendors like Segment or Amplitude, then building custom layers for velocity—while managing permissions and future-proofing against vendor expansions.

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What you'll learn

1 *(04:03) **Defining MarTech and role by company stage***
2 *(06:30) **Org placement: B2C vs B2B, centralized vs decentralized***
3 *(10:40) **Core responsibilities and hiring triggers***
4 *(18:25) **Day-to-day work and goals***
5 *(31:32) **Recommended stacks: B2C then/now and B2B***
6 *(42:38) **Attribution best practices (MTA/MMM prep)**
7 *(50:48) **Emerging trends: Probabilistic data, new channels**

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

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Austin Hay is currently Head of Marketing Technology at Ramp and was previously the VP of Business Operations at Runway, the VP of Growth at mParticle, and the fourth employee at the unicorn Branch Metrics. In 2022 he sold his online course, the Marketing Technology Academy, to Reforge, where he now teaches Martech and has a program launching in the fall. He’s consulted on Martech and growth for companies including Notion, Airbnb, Robinhood, Postmates, Walmart, JPMorgan Chase, and many others. In today’s podcast, we discuss:

• What exactly marketing technology is

• What a Martech person can do for your business

• When to hire a Martech person and what to look for

• Austin’s favorite tools

• Advice for doing attribution

• Frameworks on tooling, systems, and building vs. buying

• How to apply the concept of “thinking gray” to make better decisions in work and life

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Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-ultimate-guide-to-martech-austin

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Where to find Austin Hay:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/austinahay/

• Threads: @austinahay

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Austin’s background

(03:58) What marketing technology is

(06:17) The difference between typical growth roles and Martech

(10:23) Signs you need a Martech person on your team

(14:03) Hiring and placing a Martech person in B2B, B2C, and B2B2C businesses

(21:15) A day in the life of a Martech professional

(25:05) Marketing technology vs. marketing operations

(31:14) Tooling recommendations

(41:49) The never-ending struggle of how to do attribution well

(50:47) Emerging tools and platforms to keep an eye on

(55:26) MMM modeling

(57:47) What to look for when hiring a Martech professional, and Austin’s favorite interview questions

(1:02:45) His red fla