Study: 61% of marketers don't have the data they need to feed their tools

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Despite the explosion of data to be collected, marketers are still struggling to feed their MarTech tools with reliable data. 

Technology stack: the causes of marketers' trial and error...

Today, nearly 30% of marketing budgets are dedicated to MarTech, with solutions designed to accelerate (or automate) the execution of certain redundant tasks and/or streamline decision-making by favoring the exploitation of data over intuition.

With sales of just over $245 billion, the MarTech market reflects the unbridled digitalization of marketing. According to a study by Emergen Research, sales in this sector are set to increase 27-fold by 2030. There are several reasons for this dithyrambic performance:

  • Managers are becoming increasingly aware of the opportunities presented by a good technology stack,
  • The importance of "customer knowledge", all the more so in a context of upheaval in purchasing behavior,
  • The arrival of a digital-savvy generation in decision-making positions. According to a PYMNTS x i2c study, millennials are now responsible for 75% of purchasing decisions,
  • The pandemic has undoubtedly accelerated the pace of digital transformation.
 

Added to these reasons is a less flattering observation: marketing teams are demonstrating technological over-consumption. Indeed, a MarTech Series study points to a (very) high turnover in technological tools, and 67% of marketers concede that they will have replaced at least one "core" marketing solution by 2020. Marketing automation tools (24%), emailing platforms (23%), business intelligence tools (19% ) and data analysis solutions (17%) are particularly concerned.

This technological trial-and-error can be partly explained by the absence of a coherent approach that thinks in terms of a "stack" rather than individual tools for each task or mission. 

But there's another oddity: data gaps, both at corporate and professional level, and not just on the marketing side.

Multiple tools and data silos: a vicious circle

According to a study carried out by Dun & Bradstreet (D&B), 61% of marketers say they don't have the data they need to feed the MarTech tools at their disposal. Paradoxically, 53% of marketers surveyed explain that the volume of data to be collected has increased significantly over the last 12 months. The problem is therefore more qualitative and organizational:

  • 45% of companies have their data scattered across several media
  • " Technological solutions must be better integrated, and tools must be able to relyon a solid base of quality, interconnected data," reads the D&B study.
  • The decision-makers who have performed best in 2021 are those who have increased their investments in data and analytics, with a focus on Data Quality and Data Governance
  • According to an Openrise study detailed here, poor-quality data is one of the leading causes of ABM campaign failure.
 

In short, the lack of data unification means that it is not possible to build a coherent technological stack and multiply the synergies between the various tools. Dun & Bradstreet sees this as a vicious circle, as the multiplicity of tools(10 on average) accentuates redundancy, inefficiency and data silos. According to the study, 79% of decision-makers have had to merge several platforms in the last three years, with a major impact on :

  • Data completeness (39%)
  • Data structure (34%)
  • Cleanliness and quality of data governance (32%).

Technological overconsumption, or the tendency to blame the tool

In the intensely competitive MarTech market, publishers are vying with each other to win market share, both through R&D efforts and particularly aggressive marketing campaigns.

Marketed solutions promise dithyrambic results, and decision-makers' expectations can easily tend towards the unrealistic and fanciful. The turnover of MarTech tools bears witness toa definitedissatisfaction, and technological over-consumption suggests that decision-makers are blaming the tool and its technical features, overlooking the many other factors that may explain this under-performance:

  • Technology stacks built without any real 360° thinking (technology before strategy)
  • Thinking in micro-tasks: a tool for every link in the value chain
  • A lack of Data (or unreliable data) to feed MarTech tools.

To find out more...

No matter how advanced, technology will never be able to perform on poor quality data, from marketing to accounting to sales and HR. 

That's why Data Enso mobilizes its simple, 100% RGPD-compliant solutions tofeed your MarTech tools with impeccable data. 

Discover our Data Quality offers here!

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