According to Chief Marketer’s Martech Outlook survey, marketers face a number of hurdles in making the most of the marketing technology investments, including a lack of training (27 percent), lack of time (58 percent), the solution not working as expected (25 percent) and a lack of vendor support (11 percent).

B2B brands were more likely to look at leads as a key gauge of ROI, while B2C marketers were more inclined to use industry specific KPIs. Across the board, respondents determine the ROI of their martech spending in a number of ways, including leads converted to opportunities (63 percent), sales (52 percent), KPIs specific to the brand’s industry (36 percent), productivity (22 percent) and cost savings (23 percent).

Marketing automation was the type of technology the highest number of respondents said they planned to invest in over the next year, with 48 percent of B2C respondents and 51 percent of B2B respondents saying they planned such purchases. Email was the second most popular type of tech on marketers’ wish lists, with 47 percent of both B2B and B2C respondents indicating they planned to update their email marketing technology.

Of course, no technology can be used effectively without the right talent to direct how it is used. Anecdotally, respondents cited staffing and resources as two of their top challenges when it comes to purchasing, implementing or using martech.

“We need the dedicated resources to fully leverage capabilities and analyze the results, so we can make recommendations  for better utilizing [systems], said one respondent.

Another cited issues with getting IT on board. “Our tech teams don’t understand true marketing needs,” said another respondent. “They don’t actually use the tools, so their input on purchasing decisions is skewed.”

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