My App Stack: Syndey Sloan, CMO of Drata

There are two kinds of marketing tech stacks: the kind you proudly show on LinkedIn, and the kind you actually
use at 4:57 p.m. on a Friday when a “quick landing page tweak” turns into a three-alarm “why is the form routing
to Sales Ops’ personal inbox?” situation.

This article is about the second kindthe practical, duct-tape-meets-strategy stack that helps a modern B2B SaaS
team create demand, prove impact, and stay tightly aligned with sales. We’ll use a real-world example: the “app stack”
publicly shared by Sydney Sloan (title note: the name is commonly spelled “Sydney,” even if the headline you’ve seen
floating around occasionally swaps letters), who served as CMO of Drata, a company known for compliance automation.

If you’ve ever wondered what a high-performing CMO keeps in their “marketing utility belt,” this is your guided tour.
No cape required. Just a healthy respect for integrations and an allergy to vanity metrics.

Why a CMO’s “App Stack” Matters More Than Their Favorite KPI

A CMO’s job isn’t “run ads” or “post on social.” It’s to build a predictable growth system: generate pipeline, support
revenue, protect the brand, and make sure the company can answer the question, “What’s working?” without anyone
breaking into a cold sweat.

The app stack is how that system becomes real. Not “tools for tools’ sake,” but infrastructure:
the data foundation, the activation layer, the customer conversation layer, and the measurement layer.
When those layers click, marketing stops feeling like a magic show and starts behaving like an engine.

Context: Drata’s Market Demands a Trust-Forward Marketing Machine

In compliance and security-adjacent categories, buyers aren’t impulse-shopping. They’re assessing risk, credibility,
and proof. That changes the marketing playbook:

• Decision cycles are complex (multiple stakeholders, heavy scrutiny, high switching costs).
• Brand trust is part of the product (your marketing must “feel compliant,” not chaotic).
• Signals matter (knowing which accounts are “warming up” is often more valuable than raw lead count).
• Sales alignment is non-negotiable (marketing can’t toss leads over the wall and hope for the best).

In other words: a CMO in this space needs a stack that supports account-based motion, crisp attribution, and
tight revenue coordinationwithout turning the team into part-time data plumbers.

The Core Idea Behind Sydney Sloan’s Stack: ABM + Sales Alignment + Measurable Pipeline

A recurring theme in modern B2B growth teams is that the “center of gravity” shifts away from one-size-fits-all
blasts and toward orchestrated, account-aware engagement. That doesn’t mean you abandon inbound.
It means you treat inbound as one channel in a coordinated system.

The stack below reflects that philosophy: identify in-market accounts, activate them with relevant messaging,
route signals to revenue teams, and measure outcomes with sanity intact.

Sydney Sloan’s “My App Stack” at Drata: The Toolkit (and What Each Tool Actually Does)

Let’s break the stack into functional categories, because “a list of logos” is how stacks become messy.
Categories are how stacks become usable.

1) The Command Center: CRM + Marketing Automation Foundation

HubSpot is the hub (pun absolutely intended) for a lot of B2B teams because it can act as a connected CRM and
marketing platform. When used well, it becomes the operational backbone: lifecycle stages, routing logic,
campaigns, and shared reporting that doesn’t require a PhD in Spreadsheet Archaeology.

Why it matters for a CMO: your CRM foundation determines whether your “funnel” is a clean system or a rumor.
When a stack starts with a solid foundation, the fancy tools become multipliersnot band-aids.

2) Account Intelligence + Orchestration: Who’s In-Market, and What to Do Next

6sense shows up early in the stack because it’s built for account-based marketing and intent-driven prioritization.
In practical terms, it helps teams answer:

• Which target accounts are showing buying signals?
• Where are they in the journey (early curiosity vs. active evaluation)?
• Which plays should we run nextand through which channels?

A smart ABM platform can also reduce waste. Instead of “more spend,” you get “smarter spend”and you can
align marketing and sales around the same target list, the same signals, and the same definitions of “hot.”

3) Paid Demand Gen at Scale: Campaign Execution Without Burning Out the Team

Metadata is designed to automate parts of paid campaign workflow and experimentation. For CMOs, the appeal is simple:
fewer manual tasks, more structured testing, and faster learning cycles.

In a mature growth org, “running ads” isn’t the hard part. The hard part is running the right experiments fast enough
to find winners, then operationalizing those winners without turning every campaign launch into a multi-week saga.

4) Website + Content Operations: Make the Site a Growth Asset, Not a Bottleneck

Contentful is a headless CMS option that’s often used by teams who want content flexibility across channels and
faster iteration without constantly wrestling a monolithic website setup.

For marketing leaders, the website is a 24/7 salesperson. A modern CMS setup can make it easier to:
launch pages quickly, personalize experiences, and keep content structured so it’s reusable.
That’s not just a tech choiceit’s a growth speed choice.

5) Customer and Product-Led Conversations: Don’t Make People “Contact Sales” Just to Ask a Question

Intercom is in the stack because customer conversations are not “support-only.” They’re also signals:
product questions, pricing curiosity, implementation concerns, and yessometimes the exact objections you wish your
landing page addressed in the first place.

A CMO who treats customer comms as part of go-to-market can turn those conversations into:
better onboarding, better conversion paths, and better insight into what the market is actually asking for.

6) Competitive Intel: Knowing What You’re Up Against Without Doom-Scrolling G2 All Night

Klue appears here as the competitive intelligence layer. Competitive intel isn’t about paranoia; it’s about readiness.
When sales is in a deal, they need crisp, current positioningand marketing needs feedback on where the story wins
or loses.

A CI platform can help teams collect, organize, and distribute battlecards and competitive insights in a way that’s
usable in the moment (not buried in a folder labeled “FINAL_final_v7_reallyfinal”).

7) Data and Prospecting Fuel: Who to Contact, and How to Find the Right Humans

ZoomInfo is commonly used as a B2B data sourcethink company and contact intelligenceto help sales and marketing
target accounts more precisely and keep records enriched.

Then there’s LinkedIn Sales Navigator, which is less about “data dumps” and more about relationship-aware prospecting:
researching stakeholders, tracking changes, and engaging in a way that feels human (because… it is).

In ABM-heavy motions, these tools aren’t optional luxuries. They’re how you avoid emailing “[email protected]”
and calling it a strategy.

8) Revenue Team Execution: Outreach That’s Coordinated (Not Chaotic)

Salesloft shows up as the sales engagement layerwhere outreach sequences, follow-ups, and multi-touch plays get executed.
When your stack supports the revenue team’s day-to-day workflow, you reduce friction and increase consistency.

Sydney has highlighted a simple but powerful workflow idea: use tooling so the right people can communicate with the right
prospects at the right timewithout requiring heroics.

The “Secret Sauce” Isn’t the Tools. It’s the Wiring.

A stack becomes valuable when information flows cleanly. Here’s what that can look like in a high-level, real-world flow:

1. Identify: 6sense highlights accounts showing buying signals.
2. Enrich: ZoomInfo helps fill in missing firmographics and contacts.
3. Activate: Metadata runs paid experiments and pushes learnings quickly.
4. Convert: HubSpot captures hand-raisers, routes to sales, and tracks lifecycle stages.
5. Engage: Salesloft + Sales Navigator enable coordinated outbound and relationship-based touches.
6. Support + Learn: Intercom captures questions and friction points; marketing uses this to improve messaging and content.
7. Win Deals: Klue ensures sales has sharp competitive context.
8. Improve: Measurement and attribution tie the whole loop together.

Notice what’s missing: random tools that live on islands. In a strong stack, every major tool either feeds the system or
makes decisions easier.

Measurement Without Tears: The “Top Gem” and Why Attribution Is Always on the Guest List

Marketing measurement is where optimism goes to be humbled. Multi-touch journeys, dark social, self-serve research,
and long sales cycles make “what worked?” complicated fast.

In Sydney’s publicly shared stack discussion, a measurement-and-attribution tool called Aircover gets a shout-out as a
standout gem. The takeaway isn’t “everyone must buy Aircover.” It’s that a high-growth marketing org needs an approach
to attribution that feels usable, not mythical.

The practical lesson: pick a measurement approach your team will actually use weekly. If attribution only gets opened
during quarterly board panic, it’s not attributionit’s archaeology.

One Small Workflow That Punches Above Its Weight: “Draft on Behalf”

Sometimes the best stack moments are delightfully unglamorous. A feature Sydney has called out is a “draft on behalf”
workflow associated with Salesloft: an SDR can draft an email for an executive to sendespecially when the executive
is already connected to the prospect on LinkedIn.

Why that’s smart: it combines social proof (existing connection), personalization (executive voice), and operational speed
(SDR support). It’s a tiny play that can lift reply rates without demanding the executive live inside inbox chaos.

If You Wanted to Build a Similar Stack: A CMO-Friendly Order of Operations

Not every team needs every tool on day one. If you’re building toward a stack like this, consider sequencing based on
foundations first, multipliers second:

Phase 1: Foundations (Make Data and Routing Real)

• CRM + lifecycle definitions (HubSpot or similar)
• Lead/account routing rules, basic dashboards, and clean naming conventions
• Content operations that let you ship (CMS that matches your team’s speed)

Phase 2: Targeting + Activation (Spend Smarter)

• Intent + ABM prioritization (6sense or equivalent)
• Paid experimentation and workflow automation (Metadata or equivalent)
• Data enrichment for accuracy (ZoomInfo or equivalent)

Phase 3: Revenue Orchestration (Tighter Sales Alignment)

• Sales engagement platform workflows (Salesloft or equivalent)
• Relationship prospecting (Sales Navigator or equivalent)
• Competitive intel distribution (Klue or equivalent)

Phase 4: Measurement + Optimization (Prove and Improve)

• Attribution you’ll actually use (tooling and governance)
• Closed-loop reporting with sales outcomes (not just MQLs)
• Regular retro cadence (monthly learning loops beat quarterly panic)

A Concrete Example Playbook: “Audit Season” ABM Without Wasting Spend

Let’s make this feel real. Imagine Drata wants to drive pipeline during a peak period when compliance teams are planning
audits and tooling updates.

Step 1: Build a Target Account Slice

Use ABM signals to identify accounts in industries with higher compliance requirements. Layer in firmographics and
buyer roles so you’re not targeting “every company with a logo.”

Step 2: Launch Paid Experiments Fast

Run variations of messaging: “reduce audit effort,” “continuous compliance,” “faster SOC 2 readiness,” etc.
Keep creative simple. The goal early is learning, not awards.

Step 3: Route Engagement Into Revenue Workflows

When accounts show meaningful engagement, coordinate with sales. Use sequences and executive-assisted touches where
appropriate. Don’t let a hot account cool off because the handoff is slow.

Step 4: Equip Sales With Competitive Context

Ensure reps have quick battlecards for common competitors and objection handling. The first time a rep hears a competitor’s
pitch shouldn’t be live in a deal.

Step 5: Close the Loop

Track what actually created pipeline: which messages, which channels, which roles. Then double down.
That’s the growth looprepeatable, measurable, and increasingly efficient.

What to Take From This Stack (Even If You Don’t Use These Exact Tools)

• Build around revenue alignment, not channel vanity.
• Invest early in signal (intent + enrichment) so you stop guessing.
• Operationalize experimentation so learning happens continuously.
• Treat customer conversations as go-to-market intelligence, not a separate universe.
• Pick attribution you’ll use weekly, not just something that demos well.

If your stack helps you do those five things, congratulations: you’ve built something rarer than a perfect attribution model
a system your team can actually run.

Additional : Real-World “Stack Experiences” Marketing Leaders Learn the Hard Way

Here’s the part nobody puts in a vendor case study: living with a marketing stack is an experience. Not just an implementation,
but an ongoing relationshiplike a group project where every app is a teammate with its own personality, calendar conflicts,
and occasional tendency to ghost your webhook.

One of the first experiences teams run into is identity drift. Marketing calls an account “target,” sales calls it “never
going to buy,” and finance calls it “why are we spending money on this?” A stack like Sydney Sloan’s works best when the
definitions are shared: what counts as a target account, what counts as meaningful engagement, what counts as pipeline.
The tech supports the alignment, but it can’t replace the agreement.

Another common experience is the integration honeymoon. Everything seems magical in week one: data flows, dashboards light
up, alerts fire. Then reality arrives. You discover duplicates, missing fields, inconsistent campaign naming, and a lead scoring
model that quietly gives your intern a hotter score than your actual buyer (because the intern visited the pricing page six times
while proofreading). The lesson: your stack will always reflect your operations maturity. The quickest win is often not “new tool,”
but “cleaner system.”

Marketing leaders also learn that ABM is not a switchit’s a muscle. Tools like 6sense can surface signals, but teams need
reps and marketers to actually use those signals: adjusting plays, coordinating outreach, refreshing audiences, and revisiting the
account list with discipline. The experience here is humbling: the technology is rarely the limiting factor; the limiting factor is
the team’s cadence. Weekly account reviews and tight feedback loops create the conditions where ABM tooling shines.

Then there’s the experience of message-market mismatch. You can have perfect targeting and still underperform if the story
doesn’t land. This is where the interplay between website content (Contentful), paid learning loops (Metadata), and customer
conversations (Intercom) becomes a superpower. When prospects ask the same question repeatedly in chat, that’s content
strategy being handed to you on a silver platter. Great teams turn those questions into landing page sections, comparison pages,
FAQs, and sales enablement. The stack becomes a listening systemnot just a broadcasting system.

Finally, marketing leaders develop a deep respect for measurement as behavior change. Attribution tools and dashboards don’t
matter if nobody trusts them. Trust comes from consistency: clear definitions, repeatable reporting, and honest conversations
about what’s unknown. In long sales cycles, it’s normal for measurement to be imperfect. The experience that separates strong
teams from stressed teams is how they respond: strong teams measure directional truth, run better experiments, and improve
incrementallywithout pretending the buyer journey is a straight line.

In short, “my app stack” isn’t a flex. It’s a reflection of how a go-to-market team thinks. Sydney Sloan’s stack highlights a modern
philosophy: align around accounts, operationalize learning, coordinate with sales, and build measurement you can live with.
The real success isn’t having the toolsit’s having a system that makes the tools worth having.