The automation nobody monitored.
A large automation was assumed to have been running for years. Following the data revealed it hadn’t sent an email in over a year.
A clearer direction for MarTech
Build Better
Build Better
MarTech.
A practical guide to building marketing technology systems that actually work.
You’ve got the technology. You’ve got the data. You’ve got the platforms, automations, journeys, dashboards, integrations, and more acronyms than anyone should have to remember.
So why does it still feel so complicated?
Practical frameworks · Real-world examples · Instant PDF download
COMPASS / SYSTEM CHECK● RUNNING
AUTOMATION
A familiar sight in inherited systems.
Automation name122222211
Last modified???
OwnerUNKNOWN
Purpose???
⚠ UNKNOWN DEPENDENCIES
STATUS: RUNNING / DOCUMENTATION: MISSING
Built for people who work in the real world of MarTech.Less mystery. More clarity. Better systems.
Sound familiar?
Maybe you’ve seen this before.
If you’ve ever inherited a marketing technology system and wondered what the hell was happening, you’re not alone.
- Automations nobody wants to turn off
- Naming conventions that mean nothing
- Data extensions nobody remembers creating
- Mystery queries and unknown dependencies
- Reports where the numbers never quite match
This is the world Compass was built for.
The big idea
The technology is rarely the problem.
A new platform won’t fix a bad process. More data won’t automatically produce better decisions. Another automation won’t solve an unclear strategy. More complexity doesn’t automatically make a Journey smarter.
The better way
Understand why before you build what.
The best MarTech teams aren’t necessarily the teams with the most sophisticated technology. They’re the teams that understand why they’re building something before they start building it.
01Plan
02Simplify
03Document
04Govern
05Measure
06Improve
07Automate
✦Keep it useful.
Follow the data. Document what you build. Define what success looks like. Keep things as simple as possible. Better systems don’t happen by accident—they’re built with intention.
Get Compass — $27
I’ve actually seen this stuff
Real-world examples. Real lessons.
Not theory. Not consulting speak. These are the kinds of situations that come from years of building, breaking, and fixing MarTech systems.
The 122222211 naming convention.
Automations named with strings of numbers were moving files and extracting data. Nobody wanted to turn them off because nobody knew what depended on them.
The numbers that didn’t match Finance.
Marketing’s beautiful new Power BI reporting didn’t agree with Finance. Following the data uncovered two different definitions of the numbers.
The campaign that launched too early.
Rushing campaigns into production without discovery, process, or clear success criteria rarely ends well.
The best solution is usually not the most complicated one. It’s the one people understand, can maintain, and that produces the result the business actually needs.
Inside Compass
Practical ideas you can take back to your team.
A platform-agnostic way to think through the systems you’re building—and a toolkit to put that thinking into practice.
MarTech architecture
Think about the systems you’re building before you start building them.
Data & reporting
Follow the data instead of just making the dashboard look impressive.
Segmentation & personalization
Avoid overengineering audiences or using customer data just because you have it.
Automation & journeys
Build automation that is understandable, maintainable, and useful.
Process & governance
Use naming conventions, documentation, permissions, and process to scale.
AI & MarTech
Use AI as another member of your team without handing over your judgment.
COMPASS / MARTECH
Build
Better
MarTech.
Better
MarTech.
A practical guide to building marketing technology systems that work.
VON RALLS · 2026
The Compass Toolkit
A better way to think about your marketing systems.
A practical guide for Marketing Operations professionals, MarTech practitioners and leaders, and anyone who has inherited a messy technology environment.
- A framework for making clearer technology decisions
- Practical tools and checklists you can use with your team
- Real-world examples of common MarTech problems
- Ideas for improving data, automation, governance, and process
$27
One-time purchase · Instant PDF download
Why I wrote this
Built from experience, not theory.
I’ve spent more than two decades working with technology across a number of different spaces. That includes the last decade or so working deeply in marketing and marketing technology.
Over that time, I’ve inherited systems with no documentation, automations nobody understood, reporting that didn’t agree with Finance, and platforms where everyone somehow ended up with admin access.
I’ve also watched teams make simple things unnecessarily complicated because they were so focused on what the technology could do that they forgot to ask what it should do.
Compass is the collection of principles I’ve found myself coming back to again and again. It’s not a manual for a particular platform. It’s not a collection of technical tricks. It’s a way of thinking about MarTech.
Follow the data. Understand the system. Then build.
Build systems people can understand. Document what you build. Measure what matters. Don’t make things more complicated than they need to be.
Get Compass
Your MarTech doesn’t have to be a mess.
You don’t need another platform, another 47-step Journey, or another dashboard nobody trusts. You need a better way to think about the systems you’re building. Compass gives you that starting point.
Get Compass — $27Instant PDF download