Brands are losing customers because their marketing tech isn’t doing what it’s presupposed to. A brand new survey by Intermedia Global, a digital marketing technology specialist, says 24% of senior marketers within the UK said they lost customers up to now 12 months due to an issue with their martech stack.
About 1 / 4 also reported bad press tied to tech failures. Four in ten had to answer customer complaints, while others handled delayed campaigns (34%) or damaged client relationships (19%).
97% of CMOs said a martech issue caused some sort of issue in their business within the last 12 months. But the tools themselves aren’t at all times the issue, the corporate says: Most of the time, issues arise due to poor setup, systems that not working well together, and lack of practical support.
Intermedia Global (IMG) asked 250 UK C-suite leaders liable for marketing technology in mid-sized firms earning between £100m and £500m a 12 months.
One big trouble spot was AI. Nearly every CMO surveyed (93%) said they bumped into not less than one customer-facing problem last 12 months tied to recent AI tools that had been added to the martech stack, and half said it happened greater than once.
Karla Wentworth, IMG’s chief strategy officer, said, “A badly-thought-out martech stack isn’t just an issue for the marketing and IT teams – it’s an existential threat to the complete brand. Ineffective targeting, error-filled communications and poor automation are causing brands to haemorrhage customers.”
She said AI tools often add to the issue, especially when rushed into old systems that may’t support them. “There are too many tools that don’t work well together. Marketing teams aren’t tech support, but they’re expected to act prefer it. I keep hearing the identical thing: marketers are exhausted, frustrated, and overwhelmed. But it doesn’t need to be this fashion. They don’t need more tools – they need working ones, with clean data and solid processes.”
The survey also asked CMOs where customer-facing tech problems typically start. One-third pointed to IT, and nearly as many blamed their own departments.
Relationships with vendors aren’t helping either. Across every sort of martech – analytics, CRM, website tools – CMOs said fewer than 30% of vendors are helpful. Email marketing and automation vendors got the worst reviews, with nearly three in ten CMOs saying these providers were difficult to take care of.
Wentworth said, “When marketing technology is failing customers, it’s failing the complete brand. CMOs are clearly unimpressed with a lot of the vendors they take care of, while customers are unimpressed with the outcomes. If marketing departments are spending all their time troubleshooting their tech because they’ll’t depend on the vendors, where is the time for creativity and innovation?”
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