More than one in five (22%) in-house UK marketers claim they are expected to carry out their role with a technology stack that simply is not fit for purpose, with data quality issues remaining one of the key bugbears.
Data from customer engagement platform Emarsys’ unPredictions report found that while 90% of British marketers consider personalisation the key to both increased revenue and better customer experiences, many are wasting too much time on technical and IT tasks – in fact, 58% devote more time to preparing and segmenting data than doing anything else.
When asked about their personalisation efforts, more than half (55%) say an inability to execute effectively across different channels is preventing agile marketing.
More than a third (34%) struggle with poor technology integrations, while almost a quarter (22%) blame their personalisation woes on their inability to act on existing customer data.
As a result, marketing teams are plagued by inefficiencies, with enterprises using an average of 91 marketing cloud services. This is directly impacting the quality of data – 83% of executives acknowledge they have data silos, 97% of which believe those silos are negatively impacting business.
Despite the technical difficulties, 94% of marketers reported the use of AI to segment data as an important means of handling data, which suggests there is still a healthy appetite for martech technologies – they just need to be the right ones.
Emarsys managing director of UK/Nordics/Benelux Heath Barlow said: “The current excess of technology in marketing proves that implementing new software is often the go-to solution for a problem – but a martech stack shouldn’t be like a patchwork quilt.
“While this approach may provide a short-term solution, the fragmented result will ultimately waste both time and money – both of which marketers are already short on.
“Instead of more tools, marketing teams need unified software that prioritises ease of use and visibility. Centralising both tools and data drives a deeper understanding of the customer. Combining that with AI to do the heavy lifting, you can truly unlock intelligent personalisation.”
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