Hey! 👋
I can’t believe it’s already October…what a wild, fast year! I hope you and your families are doing well.
I was a lifeguard for many years in high school and college, and my instructor had a saying — the mark of a great lifeguard is not how many saves she does, but how many saves she prevents in the first place. 🛟
I believe in taking the same approach to marketing ops and revenue ops. We want to prevent as many issues as we can.
As teams are squeezed to do more and more with less, this becomes really difficult. So I wanted to share how I “safety net” my MAP and CRM instances to automate a lot of monitoring — which saves me a lot of time, and builds trust/credibility with my partner teams when I catch issues before they even become visible to others.
For some, this may seem silly, but I’m telling you — I walk into so many instances and teams that are still manually checking data lead by lead, or, worse — are waiting on stakeholders to flag issues. This really decays the trust with the marketers, which is awful for the MOPs team. So if you don’t have these types of automated alerts or reports set up now, let’s get you set up! ❤️🩹
Before we dive into the main content, please check out a quick word from our sponsors, who are kind enough to support the creation of this free-to-you MOPs content 💖:
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Okay, now on to my safety net guide! 👇
Tl;dr, the key takeaways I want you to focus on:
Treat your CRM like an ecosystem, not an end solution: build automations that protect data and reputation *before* issues surface.
Think in systems, not tasks: document ownership, escalation paths, and outline respected response times (P1–P3).
Start small with high-impact alerts, then scale across functions like routing, compliance, and data integrity. The best scenarios to cover are the ones that address the biggest issues at your org.
Always test in sandbox, validate logic, and track alert frequency to avoid false positives. Don’t just set it and forget it — this is a living mechanism to serve you.
Standardize alert formats (like Slack templates) so triage is fast, consistent, and easy to understand quickly.
Connect alerts to clear, expected follow-up action(s). Each alert should have a owner, channel, and follow-up process.
Integrate with existing tools first (HubSpot, Salesforce, Marketo) instead of trying to build anything custom right away.
Focus on prevention, not reaction. We want to prevent issues, not just see them after they occur.
Regularly audit and prune automations to make sure they are working and don’t need to be adjusted.
Start with “quick wins” that protect revenue first (think: lead routing enforcement), then move to optimization and hygiene.
There’s a lot more in the guide, this is just a quick summary of some points. 👆
What I’m up to/what I’m studying 💭
Lately, I’ve been studying more and more about HubSpot as I try to become the ultimate power admin. Do you have any recommended newsletters or resources I should follow (and share with the community!)? 👀
By the way, I’ll be attending/speaking at Mopza in Anaheim (in just a few weeks)! ☀️
Please do come up and say “hi” (or say hi in the chat!) if you see me there! 👋😁
Dear Sara ✍️
New to marketing operations? On a team of one at your company? Shy/introverted? Wish you could ask a question to an experienced marketing operations professional, without them knowing who you are? Here’s your chance! Submit an anonymous question to me here and I’ll answer a new question in every issue.
Here’s my answer to a question from last week:
I have about 4 years in Marketing Ops, with a title of Marketing Ops Manager. Been applying to new roles and getting interviews, but getting rejected for 'more experienced candidates' :(. Realize there's a lot of variables to this, but do you recommend making a portfolio? Or is that something people do later in their careers?
It doesn’t hurt to make one; I think people imagine an art or photography portfolio of tons of samples when they hear “portfolio,” but even just a simple slide deck or doc you can speak alongside can really help outline your experience to hiring managers. I have a template you make a copy of and poke at — you definitely don’t have to use the huge template, it’s more of a “grab and go” that you can pick from.
That being said, here are some other considerations:
It’s a tough, highly competitive market. When the market is tight, there are a multitude of candidates, so employers are less likely to take a risk on someone with less experience (especially when it comes to people management or a new MAP). So be fair and kind to yourself — you are not alone in your experience, I hear from many folks who are having similar experiences right now.
Make sure you are speaking at the level you want to be hired for. If you’re trying to move upwards in your career, be careful about being too tactical or using too much language specific to your previous role — it often prevents hiring managers from “seeing you in the new role.” Look at job listings for your new role and see how they talk about their tasks and goals, and try to mirror that. For example, if you are an email campaign manager and want to move into a more holistic technologist role, be careful about answering more holistic questions with email-centered answers.
As you mentioned, there are many variables at play. Ask for feedback to see if anyone will give you hints on where to practice or better refine your pitch. Check out my MOPs interview guide here to see what else may be impacting your interview process!
And good luck! 🙏🫶
Meme of the week 🖼️
Interesting martech of the week ⚙️
Paminga has come onto my radar recently, and I’m amazed by the reviews I’m seeing MOPs Strategist community members like Grace Harbison give it. They are definitely playing to be the replacement Marketo, and the early reviews look promising. It’s on my list to do a deep dive demo with them, and I’ll report back anything more that I learn. 🫡
Here are some quotes from some community members:
Paminga is so clean and moves so quickly, and honestly has everything we all hoped Adobe would implement but hasn’t and probably never will.
Keep an eye on Paminga — fantastic UI and very responsive. Cloneable Programs has long been something competitors couldn’t match. I mentioned it during a demo with Michael Ward, and just weeks later, they rolled it out. That’s the kind of nimble, startup mentality we haven’t seen from Marketo (or HubSpot) in almost a decade.
Yesterday I got a glimpse of how easy Marketing Automation could be with a modern UI. Michael Ward gave me a demo of Paminga, and I was super impressed with the logic and consistency of the UI.
(reminder: I have no affiliation with Paminga and do not make any money from mentioning them)
What do you think? Have you had a demo with Paminga? 👀
If you have a moment, will you let me know if you enjoyed this edition of the newsletter? Thank you!
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Thanks for reading,
❤️ Sara