The Four Pillars of Marketing Operations

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When it comes to the Four Pillars of Marketing Operations, do you know your POPs and COPs from your MIOPs and DevMOPs? The Four Pillars of Marketing Operations are more than just catchy acronyms, they’re the tireless cogs that make the sales cycle go round.

But what does it all mean for your team structure? Which skill sets are needed for each role? How can you convince your boss that Marketing Ops is not a one-person job??

Let’s break down the Four Pillars of Marketing Operations, and what makes them the secret to effortless strategy execution.

What is Marketing Operations?

Marketing Operations is the strategic discipline that empowers marketing teams to efficiently execute their strategies. It involves designing processes, managing technology, and analyzing data to drive marketing performance, hit KPIs, and improve ROI.

Marketing Ops professionals play a key role in aligning marketing efforts with overall business goals. Unsurprisingly, this makes for a wide-ranging, highly demanding job:

• • • 57% of Marketing Ops professionals say their workload is overwhelming
    • 93% of B2B marketers say the marketing operations function is important or critical in delivering digital transformation
    • The most common responsibility in Marketing Ops roles is researching and recommending marketing technology products

The Four Pillars of Marketing Ops

The many responsibilities of Marketing Ops can be categorized into four pillars: Platform Operations, Campaign Operations, Marketing Intelligence Operations, and Marketing Development Operations.

1. Platform Operations (POPs)

Platform Operations is centered around - you guessed it - the platforms that power your marketing team. POPs professionals are responsible for the management of tech stack staples like Salesforce, with a mandate to keep data clean and systems up-to-date.

As teammates, Platform Ops specialists are those rare people who thrive in the technicalities of lead scoring, lifecycle management, marketing automation, platform integrations, system administration, and all things data management.

Last but not least, POPs are usually the go-to contact for those projects that seasoned marketers dread: platform implementations and/or migrations.

2. Campaign Operations (COPs)

For Campaign Operations managers, a typical day revolves around customer-facing pursuits like email creation, landing page launches, and webinar scheduling. COPs teams are laser focused on engagement, and continuously assess and adjust their campaigns in response to clicks, opens, and conversions.

COPs specialists also study competitors to identify campaign opportunities and stay ahead of the latest trends. Internally, they work closely with Marketing Intelligence and Sales to gather data-backed insights and anecdotal feedback.

The COPs Manager’s key to success is repeatable processes: campaigns that can be efficiently scaled and replicated throughout the marketing calendar to generate a steady stream of leads.

3. Marketing Intelligence Operations (MIOPs)

Need to prove the impact of an influencer campaign? Trying to justify budget for paid ads? Want to measure the ROI of email marketing?

Marketing Intelligence Operations is the hub of all knowledge when it comes to performance metrics and campaign attribution. With an abundance of tech at our fingertips, you may take this type of intelligence for granted; Salesforce automatically surfaces key insights, right?

In reality, the work of MIOPs teams has never been more challenging. Customer journeys are more complex than ever, browsers continue to crack down on cookie tracking, and disconnected marketing platforms are notorious for churning out conflicting data.

The MIOPs manager’s secret weapon in the battle for clarity? Customized dashboards that turn Salesforce data into actionable insights.

4. Marketing Development Operations (DevMOPs)

Marketing Development (or Engineering) Operations demands an advanced skill set and a generous budget. Unfortunately, the complex nature of their work means you are unlikely to find a dedicated DevMOPs specialist in the average marketing team.

If you do manage to spot one in the wild, DevMOPs managers spend their time working on custom development projects and sophisticated integrations. Essentially, they make other marketers’ jobs easier by building automated workflows and scalable processes.

In companies with limited marketing resources, however, the DevMOPs role is often outsourced to agencies or consultants for one-off projects.

The Secrets of Marketing Ops

Marketing Ops professionals are the unsung heroes behind successful campaigns. They ensure strategies are executed smoothly, resources are optimized, and insights are leveraged for continuous improvement.

So what’s their secret? How does Marketing Operations seemingly do it all? Watch the Secrets of Marketing Ops webinar to learn more!

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