It’s broken because the system keeps getting in the way.
According to IMG’s latest Marketing Experience (MX) Moment report, 92% of CMOs said that if they’d known how tech-dominated their roles would become…
They might have chosen a different career.
Now, that stat to me feels a bit over dramatic, but the sentiment stands true.
There are some ridiculously crazy tech stacks that have been/are being built.
In some instances…
- 140+ tools in the average tech stack.
- 50% of the marketing budget swallowed by software.
- But only 2% say their data flows smoothly.
And yet, as a function, we keep still keep layering more tools, adding more platforms, chasing ‘efficiency.’
But if your workflows are chaotic, your systems disconnected, and your team constantly context-switching, AI isn’t going to save you and be that silver bullet.
It’ll just make the chaos faster!
The impact of all this, according to IMG:
- 71% of marketers say they regularly lose time to tech troubleshooting
- 24% of businesses have lost customers due to martech failures
- 93% say AI has already caused customer-facing issues
These stats do ring true!!
So, maybe as we approach 2026, it’s time to draw breath and stop asking “What new tool can we try?”
In your planning meetings, start asking yourselves, what would it take to:
- Give our teams time to think again?
- Build a stack that supports strategy, not just speed?
- Make space for creativity and thinking, not bury it in admin?
Because the most impactful marketing happens when systems get out of the way and people get to do their best work.
Take a read of the MX report, it’s useful read: https://intermedia-global.com/news/mxreport/