Commentary

How They Stack Up: Brands List Their Martech Challenges

Brands are investing in marketing technology. But only19% have a strategy for getting the most out of their martech stack, according to Martech Stack Optimization, a study by Ascend2.

Another 58% are developing an operational strategy. But even when they get there, they face barriers to achieving these martech benefits:

  • Improving marketing efficiency — 40%
  • Improving attribution of revenue — 38%
  • Integrating disparate systems — 36%
  • Increasing marketing ROI — 34%
  • Improving customer experience — 31%
  • Improving data management & security — 29%
  • Improving marketing personalization — 29%

These findings should be daunting to email marketers who seek better integration of their platform into their company’s stack to gain better data access and personalization.

Only 31% rate themselves as very successful (best in class) at achieving key priorities with their marketing stack. But 64% say they are somewhat successful.

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At the same time, 22% plan to continue investing significantly in martech. And 49% will invest moderately. Another 15% are planning to start investing, and 14% do not expect to invest at all.

The key martech priorities differ slightly in order of importance from the challenges:

  • Improving marketing efficiency — 53%
  • Increasing marketing ROI — 45%
  • Improving marketing personalization — 29%
  • Improving attribution of revenue — 27%
  • Improving data management & security — 26%
  • Integrating disparate systems — 19%

Which features do marketers want in a martech stack? They seek:

  • Data insights and analysis — 51%
  • Systems integration — 48%
  • Real-time processing — 40%
  • Data centralization — 34%
  • Scalability/flexibility — 31%
  • Multi-channel experience — 30%
  • Artificial intelligence — 14%

What improvements do they seek in their stacks? They’d like to see upgrades in:

  • Ease of use (greater utilization & faster adoption by team) — 52%
  • Integration with other technologies in the stack — 38%
  • Ability to customize technology to specific needs — 37%
  • Ability to improve the customer experience — 36%
  • Heralding of data (use of data) — 33%
  • Ability to automate a proses — 32%
  • Use of AI and machine learning — 16%

Of the companies polled, 62% use a combination of outsourced and in-house resources to implement martech stack tactics. Another 14% outsource everything to specialists, and 24% do everything in-house.

Ascend2 and its Research Partners surveyed 265 marketing professionals. 

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