The CMO guide to marketing team management during an acquisition

Acquisitions can open doors for innovation, market expansion, and brand evolution. But for marketing teams, they often bring more questions than answers: Who owns what campaign? What tools should we use? Are we still speaking with one brand voice?

The reality is, most mergers don’t unfold overnight. In fact, according to a McKinsey study, 75% of M&A transitions occur gradually, requiring careful coordination—not only for customers, but for internal teams navigating the change.

At Optimizely, we understand this firsthand. We’ve integrated multiple acquired companies into our own marketing operations over the past four years. And we’ve seen the impact of doing it right. We’ve also seen this managed successfully by one of our strategic partners, Valtech. Valtech’s recent acquisition of Kin + Carta, where Optimizely Content Marketing Platform (CMP) played a key role in aligning people, priorities, and platforms.

In this guide, we’ll walk through the common pitfalls of marketing team management during acquisition—and how to avoid them with the right strategy, tools, and mindset.

What could possibly go wrong when marketing teams merge?

Managing marketing teams during M&A is rarely straightforward. Even with strong leadership and clear goals, missteps can derail integration efforts. Here’s where we often see things go sideways:

1. Blurred roles and team structure

   Suddenly, there are two heads of digital marketing. Overlapping campaign owners. Uncertainty over who owns the brand, demand, tools, tech… you get the jist.. Without clarity, teams become overburdened—or worse, disengaged. The risk? Burnout or attrition just when you need unity the most.

2. Redundant or conflicting campaigns

   Multiple teams might target the same audience with different messaging, which can lead to market confusion, diluted brand perception and wasted ad spend. Adding to this, a lack of centralized asset library can lead to even more inconsistent branding, duplicated efforts and wasted time searching for the most up-to-date materials across teams.

3. Siloed tools and inconsistent processes

   One team manages their event calendar in a spreadsheet. Another uses a content marketing platform like Optimizely CMP to plan content and campaigns. Teams struggle without a shared calendar, and limited visibility into deadlines. The result is missed timelines, inefficient handoffs, and poor campaign performance.

4. Mixed messaging and brand fragmentation

   Without a unified brand strategy, tone and messaging drift apart—creating customer confusion and eroding trust.

5. Slower approvals and execution

   If workflows aren’t standardized, the campaign launch machine grinds to a halt. During an acquisition, every delay matters. What’s the business impact of mismanaging a marketing team through M&A?

When marketing teams aren’t effectively managed through an acquisition, the fallout isn’t just internal—it hits the bottom line:

• Wasted budget from duplicate work and uncoordinated spending

• Slower go-to-market velocity, right when momentum is critical

• Lower employee morale, as teams operate in chaos without direction

• Customer confusion, hurting retention and brand perception

• Missed revenue targets from stalled lead gen or delayed product launches

According to a McKinsey survey of 200 seasoned M&A executives, companies on average only achieve 77% of their targeted ‘revenue synergies’(i.e. more money) following mergers and acquisitions. This shortfall highlights the challenges that companies can face in hitting those project growth targets when M&A becomes a reality.

This underscores the critical role of marketing in M&A success. Effective brand integration and strategic marketing planning are essential to realizing the full value of a merger or aquisition. Neglecting these aspects can lead to lost business revenue, employee dissatisfaction and diminished brand equity.

Case study: How Valtech navigated post merger integration (PMI) with Optimizely CMP

About Valtech

Valtech is a global experience innovation company with a strong belief in  marketing orchestration—prioritizing visibility, collaboration, and scale across global teams. With over 900 tasks completed and 200+ content projects executed in Optimizely CMP, Valtech is realizing the true value of marketing orchestration, and this value really came into play with a high stakes acquisition.

The Kin + Carta acquisition

In 2024, Valtech acquired Kin + Carta, bringing together two large, globally distributed marketing organizations. The challenges were clear:

• Consolidate brand identity

• Maintain campaign momentum

• Enable regional collaboration at scale

• Manage complex migrations, including website, marketable database and broader data migrations

How using a CMP facilitated a smooth transition

Valtech used Optimizely CMP to stay on track during the integration, with features that helped teams:

• Plan unified campaigns across teams and geographies

• Maintain visibility across calendars, deadlines, and content assets

• Automate approvals and workflows to prevent bottlenecks

• Govern brand consistency through shared templates and asset libraries

5 principles for managing a marketing team post-acquisition

Drawing from Valtech’s experience—and lessons from Optimizely’s own acquisitions—here are five essential principles for marketing leaders:

1. Align on strategic priorities early

   Get ahead of the confusion that comes with M&A driven change - new leaders, overlapping priorities, lack of clarity on ownership and business priorities. Marketers can use a content marketing platform (CMP) like Optimizely CMP to build shared goals and briefs across teams.
   💡 Pro Tip: Let AI-generated briefs jumpstart alignment when consolidating content across brands.

2. Consolidate campaign planning and visibility

   Centralize calendars to see all planned activity at a glance.
   💡 Pro Tip: Optimizely Opal can suggest optimizations to reduce overlap and improve campaign timing across markets.

3. Standardize workflows and approvals

   Keep things moving—even in flux—by using built-in workflows that enforce accountability and reduce lag.

4. Unify messaging and branding

   Establish brand governance at scale using reusable templates, centralized brand centers, and asset libraries.

5. Keep culture front and center

   Support teams emotionally, not just operationally. Encourage transparency, recognize wins, and offer support to avoid burnout.

Why a CMP can be an essential tool for marketing teams during M&A

Acquisitions can create complexity—but that doesn’t have to mean chaos. A CMP can give you:

• A single source of truth for campaign planning, execution, and governance

• AI-enhanced capabilities for streamlined content and campaign creation, performance summaries, and onboarding

• Smart suggestions for briefs, workflows, and asset tagging, helping new team members quickly get up to speed

• A co-pilot for marketing ops, offering visibility and control during a high-stakes transition

Conclusion

CMP is more than a content planner - it’s a true orchestrator

Mergers are about more than combining businesses—they’re about uniting teams, tools, and visions. As Valtech’s story shows, the right mindset paired with the right platform can lead to seamless marketing integration and accelerated success.

If you're navigating marketing team management during an acquisition, don’t wait for clarity to arrive—create it. With a CMP, your team can stay aligned, agile, and on brand from day one.