• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, January 30, 2020

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.

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.