Marketers most often cite tools as their biggest pain point, but according to a report from Hightouch, the real problem is disconnected data 75% of the time.
The report, “Has Martech failed marketers?“, analyzed 384 conversations with marketing leaders and revealed a gap between ambition and execution.
Among the findings:
- 95% of marketers struggle to find or target their target groups effectively.
- 75% of martech pain points can be traced back to data issues and not the tools themselves.
- Only 10% of marketers feel they are using AI effectively, but 75 percent want to use AI more often and for more applications.
- Less than 2% feel they have successfully used AI for personalization, and less than 1% feel they have achieved one-to-one personalization.
According to Hightouch, almost every marketer surveyed was excited about generative and agentic AI, but most said their organizations are not equipped to use it with confidence. The report shows that the core problem is data readiness. Most marketing teams still deal with fragmented systems and reliance on technical support, making advanced personalization and the ability to understand and act on business data difficult to scale.
The survey was conducted among B2B and B2C marketers in industries such as retail, fintech, entertainment, healthcare and SaaS.
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Mike Pastore is Head of Content & Media at Third Door Media, the publisher of the Martech and Search Engine Land websites and the producer of the SMX and MarTech conferences. In nearly three decades in B2B marketing, Mike has worked as an editor, writer and marketer. He first wrote about marketing in 1998 for internet.com (later Jupitermedia). He went on to work with marketers at some of the best-known brands in B2B technology, creating content for marketing campaigns at both Jupitermedia and QuinStreet. Before joining Third Door Media as editor-in-chief of the MarTech website, he led demand generation at B2B media company TechnologyAdvice.
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