ANA CMO MarTech Mastery Series: The Role of Leadership in Vendor Evaluations

Selecting the right technology partners is critical to ensuring marketing technology investments deliver both immediate and long-term value, yet many organizations struggle with inconsistent evaluation approaches, unclear criteria, and decisions that overemphasize cost at the expense of strategic fit.

This MarTech Mastery Workshop focuses on how CMOs and marketing technology leaders can build confidence in evaluating technology partners to ensure they meet organizational needs today and in the future. The session walks through proven methods for assessing vendors on alignment, capabilities, and performance.

Led by industry experts, the workshop blends strategic leadership perspective with practical guidance. Participants will explore how leading organizations are structuring vendor evaluation processes that balance innovation with stability, while ensuring technology decisions support broader marketing and business objectives.

The session emphasizes the leadership and organizational dynamics of vendor selection, including collaboration across marketing, procurement, IT, and finance teams. Attendees will learn how to apply consistent evaluation criteria, compare vendors more effectively, and make decisions that reduce risk while maximizing long-term value.

Participants will leave with:

A clear understanding of how to evaluate technology partners more effectively and confidently
Practical strategies for assessing vendors based on alignment, capability, and performance
Guidance on balancing innovation, stability, cost, and value in decision-making
Insight into building structured evaluation frameworks that improve speed and consistency
An actionable framework to strengthen their organization’s vendor selection process

This workshop is ideal for CMOs, marketing technology and operations leaders, procurement stakeholders, and enterprise decision-makers who want to improve how they evaluate, select, and manage marketing technology partners.