Leading a Four-Brand Marketing Platform Migration

The company ran email marketing for four brands on Acoustic, and the platform was up for renewal at a higher annual cost. Renewing was the easy option. It was also the most expensive one, and a fair moment to ask whether the platform still fit how four brands were marketing.

Changing platforms across four brands is not a small decision. Every campaign, template, automated flow, list and integration has to move, and the business cannot pause sending while it happens.

I ran the evaluation and the migration as a single program. First, the decision: I evaluated five platforms against the needs of each brand, modeled the cost of each option against the renewal, and built the business case. I presented the recommendation to the CMO and the business unit presidents, and the decision was made jointly with executive leadership.

Then the migration itself. I planned the migration, directed 30+ contributors across teams and business units, redesigned processes that had been shaped by the old platform and trained the teams who would work in the new one.

• Vendor evaluation and cost analysis across five candidates.
• Business case and executive recommendation.
• Migration planning and data migration.
• Process redesign for campaign production, segmentation and reporting.
• Training and change management for every business unit.

I owned the program from the first vendor conversation through go-live. That included the analysis, the executive presentation, the vendor recommendation, the project plan, day-to-day direction of contributors and the training that followed.

Today I manage the Klaviyo platform across the business, serve as a primary operational contact with Klaviyo, and contribute to budget planning and spend recommendations. Final contract and spending decisions sit with executive leadership.

The migration substantially reduced annual platform spend, coming in well below both the previous cost and the proposed renewal, and finished with zero campaign downtime. After go-live, blended open rates rose from 12% to 36% as the rebuilt segmentation and send strategy took hold.

Beyond the savings, the evaluation and business case give the company a worked example for the next platform decision.

Exact platform costs, vendor scoring details, contract terms and internal project documents are not published here.