Out in the cold: Bosses keep marketers out of the loop

Three quarters of UK marketers say that key decisions are made by senior leadership without ever consulting those closest to the action, driving a wedge between decision-makers and the teams that are under pressure to deliver ever-increasing results.

That is according to new research from digital experience platform Optimizely, which surveyed 100 UK marketers. The findings reveal how top-down decision-making and excessive reporting demands are stifling marketing performance.

Four in five marketers (81%) say leadership expects them to deliver more with fewer resources. But despite this pressure, many say they are not empowered to succeed. A fifth (19%) spend more time reporting than executing, while nearly a quarter (21%) say they are stuck justifying their work instead of actually doing it.

This level of accountability, without being involved in key decisions, is creating a knock-on effect, the report claims.

Nearly one in five (17%) say the business does not fully understand the complexity of modern marketing, while 16% feel under constant pressure to prove the value of their work. Meanwhile, 15% believe that too much of marketing has become unmeasurable, making it difficult to demonstrate impact in the first place.

At a systems level, the disconnect is just as clear. Although over half (53%) of marketers are looking for a more unified system to simplify workflows and improve performance, more than one in 10 (12%) cite lack of leadership buy-in when it comes to making this a reality.

Optimizely SVP of marketing Tara Corey said: “Marketers do their best work when they’re trusted to make decisions, not just report on them.

“When teams have the autonomy to act on real-time insights and the tech to back them up, they can move faster, think bigger, and deliver experiences that actually make an impact. A more connected tech stack isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s what makes modern marketing work.”