• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, December 3, 2018

Problems integrating platforms can present a serious barrier to omnichannel marketing activities, per the Econsultancy and Adobe report 

Most marketers today are working on implementing necessary marketing technologies at their organization, according to a new Ascend2 report, which finds that their martech (Marketing Technology) strategies revolve primarily around increasing ROI and improving marketing efficiency. But while marketers are confident that their strategies will put them on the path to success, they are facing several barriers.

The 145 marketing influencers surveyed, of whom 80% were primarily B2B-focused (63%) or equally focused on B2B and B2C (17%), said that the biggest barrier to marketing technology success is integrating disparate systems. A new study from Econsultancy and Sitecore also finds challenges in this area, with close to half of respondents saying that their understanding of the costs of connecting disparate systems is “poor.”

Beyond the strategic difficulties inherent in integrating various systems,

the Ascend2 report also identifies two specific technologies which are proving more difficult to implement than others, cited by more than half of the respondents: data management (56%), and marketing analytics (55%).

B2B firms seem to be having a more difficult time implementing analytics than their B2C counterparts, says the report. In the most recent edition of The CMO Survey, B2B firms estimated using analytics in fewer than one-third of their decisions,compared to being used in more than 4 in 10 decisions for B2C companies. The biggest factors preventing CMOs from using analytics more often in decision-making were a lack of process/tools to measure success through analytics, and a lack of people who can link analytics to marketing practice.