From Sync Backlogs to Lightning Velocity
Lessons from Vercel’s PLG Ops Overhaul
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This week’s newsletter is sponsored by Inflection.io, the AI-native marketing platform that works for you. Drive pipeline, product adoption, and revenue across the account lifecycle.
Scaling a product-led growth motion isn’t just about adding tools — it’s about rethinking how your entire system works together under pressure.
At PLGTM 2025, Joe Reitz and Cory Gabor, Sr. Marketing Ops Managers from Vercel shared how a crippling Marketo sync backlog forced them to rethink everything. Instead of patching holes, they rebuilt their entire marketing ops engine — and in the process, created a blueprint for modern, high-velocity growth.
This article is a recap of their session. Click 👇 to watch sessions from PLGTM 2025.
When Sync Backlogs Become a Growth Killer
Vercel’s marketing ops team was battling a monster: over 20,000 new contacts flowing in daily, all crawling through Marketo’s rigid 11,000/hour sync cap. Backlogs piled up for weeks, blocking campaigns, stalling sales handoffs, and burning valuable time on manual data triage.
Rather than patch the leaky ship, the team hit pause and asked the hard question: what do we really need to scale? One bold move was shifting scoring and lifecycle logic directly into Salesforce. This gave them immediate breathing room but didn’t solve the core issue.
Next came evaluating new marketing automation platforms — a daunting race against a ticking contract clock. Joe and Cory used a vendor comparison approach that felt part detective work, part Choose Your Own Adventure. They even built a mini-app (using Vercel’s V0 product) to help future teams shortlist platforms faster. Ultimately, they chose Inflection.io for its tight Salesforce integration, real-time data syncing, and future-friendly architecture.
The 30-Day Lightning Migration
Then came the sprint: migrating everything in 30 days, right before a major event, with a new hire, Joe, ramping up at full tilt.
They rebuilt over 50 email programs, recreated 19 dynamic lists, and designed eight complex nurture journeys. They even introduced a new lead routing system they playfully dubbed the “Sorting Hat”.
It was a “eat the elephant one bite at a time” moment, with the team prioritizing critical campaigns first and moving quickly to reestablish trust with stakeholders.
Process Over Tools: The Email Approval Bottleneck
A surprising roadblock wasn’t technical — it was people. Their email approval process, which relied on open Slack threads and scattered feedback, turned into a chaotic bottleneck.
By adopting a linear approval chain with Knack, they replaced the “everyone everywhere all at once” approach with a clear, step-by-step review flow. The result? Campaign velocity doubled, and team stress levels dropped dramatically.
Looking Ahead: Automation as a Force Multiplier
The future looks even more electric. The team is jazzed about Inflection’s upcoming AI campaign agent, capable of building full journeys in just a few prompts — a dream come true for anyone who’s spent hours stitching together workflows. They’re also leaning into data warehouse writes to better filter out bot clicks and uncover true email performance, plus using tokens for dynamic content personalization at scale.
My Takeaways
Vercel didn’t just talk theory — they shared actual tools. Their QR-coded app to help shortlist vendors, a marketing toolkit with UTM and campaign name generators, and lightweight front-end tutorials using Vercel’s V0 product are all freely available. As they said, grab them, remix them, and take full credit at your next team meeting.
Instead of forcing old habits into new tools, Vercel focused on what would actually help them grow.
They also showed that operational trust isn’t built in status updates — it’s earned by delivering on time, every time. And sometimes, the best way to fix a system isn’t to patch it — it’s to rebuild it entirely.
This session was a masterclass in turning operational chaos into a nimble, high-speed PLG engine.
PLGTM is now Demand & Expand
PLGTM Summit is evolving into Demand & Expand 2026—a bigger, bolder two-day experience built for the full spectrum of B2B marketers. Same community, bigger scope, new name. Join us May 19–20, 2026 in San Francisco.