CMOs report allocating a quarter of their entire marketing budget to marketing technology1, yet respondents say just 42% of the capabilities in their MarTech stack are utilized2. Organizations struggle to utilize technology for a multitude of reasons:
- Skill requirements
- A lack of integration
- Architectural complexity
- Poor data ingress
Couple underutilization with the research showing that marketers often state there is significant overlap in marketing technology solutions2 and it is likely that organizations are overinvesting in tech.
Technology overlap is also common following M&A activity and with over 36K M&A transactions in 20222, teams should pay close attention to hindering impacts on their MarTech stack and its associated budget.
As a result, organizations are budgeting for multiple tools that perform redundant functions instead of recognizing consolidation and cost reduction opportunities. This lack of utilized technology impacts cost-effectiveness of implemented MarTech.
Here is how to stop wasting your marketing budget:
- Encourage IT and marketing to collaborate on budgeting
Companies that report collaborative funding (i.e., marketing + IT/technology + other functions as primary contributors) to martech investments report higher current utilization rates (46%) than the overall survey average (42%)3.
- Leverage new data to craft a MarTech integration strategy
As marketing utilization rates increase, organizations can leverage more data and create more impactful insights, better understanding their customer’s decisions, behavior, and expectations.
- Reexamine the human and technical resource requirements of the MarOps model
Organizations should ensure that teams have the requisite skill sets, collaboration abilities, and alignment of strategies.