– 24% of CMOs have lost customers over the past year due to poor martech – and 40% have had customer complaints
– 93% have had customer-facing errors due to AI tools – 48% have had more than one
– 32% of brands’ tech issues originated with the marketing department
– Email marketing and marketing automation vendors are the most likely to be seen as actively unhelpful.
Bad martech is costing brands their customer relationships, according to new research. A quarter (24%) of senior marketers have admitted that they’ve lost customers over the past 12 months because of an error from their martech stack.
It’s also far from the only problem they’ve faced. A similar number (25%) have faced negative publicity due to martech error, while 40% have had to deal with customer complaints. In addition, 34% have faced delays to a campaign and 19% have seen a negative impact on a client relationship.
In fact, 97% of CMOs have had some sort of martech issue in the past year that has led to a negative outcome with their customers or business partners. But in most cases, the issue isn’t the technology itself – it’s poor implementation, disconnected systems and lack of practical support.
The survey was carried out by marketing optimisation and transformation specialists Intermedia Global (IMG). It canvassed 250 UK C-Suite professionals with responsibility for marketing technology in mid-sized enterprises with annual revenues between £100m and £500m.
It also found that poorly-implemented AI tools were another major source of pain. Almost 19 out of 20 CMOs (93%) had encountered a customer-facing issue, challenge or mistake over the past 12 months that was at least in part caused by the introduction of new, AI-powered tools to their martech stack.
Even more worrying, half (48%) said this had happened more than once.
Karla Wentworth, chief strategy officer of IMG, comments: “A badly-thought-out martech stack isn’t just a problem for the marketing and IT teams – it’s an existential threat to the entire brand. Ineffective targeting, error-filled communications and poor automation are causing brands to haemorrhage customers. Marketers who spend their days talking about improving the customer experience are actually seeing it eroded by their own technology platforms.
“And unfortunately, all too often the shiny new AI tools are just making things worse, especially if they’ve been bolted onto an out-of-date legacy stack that’s not up to the challenge or if they were installed in a rush.
“In many cases, martech is causing problems rather than solving them. It’s often just too complex now, with too many tools and systems trying (and failing) to work together. Marketing teams aren’t tech support experts, but they’re expected to be.
“I keep hearing the same thing: marketers are exhausted, frustrated and overwhelmed. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Marketers don’t need more tools — they need the right ones working properly, with clear data and solid processes behind them.”
The study also asked CMOs to identify the origin with their organisation of any customer-facing issues involving a technical problem that had negatively impacted customer satisfaction or experience over the past 12 months.
A third (33%) said the issues started in the IT department – and almost as many (32%) blamed marketing; the two teams most closely aligned with the martech stack.
Furthermore, their relationships with technology vendors are not helping CMOs to deal with these problems more effectively. In every category of martech software, from data analytics to CRM to website optimisation, senior marketers said that less than 30% of the vendors are generally good to deal with and helpful.
Even worse, email marketing and marketing automation vendors are the most likely to be seen as actively unhelpful and difficult to work with (29% and 28% of CMOs said so, respectively).
Karla Wentworth concludes: “When marketing technology is failing customers, it’s failing the entire brand. CMOs are clearly unimpressed with most of the vendors they deal with, while customers are unimpressed with the results. If marketing departments are spending all their time troubleshooting their tech because they can’t rely on the vendors, where is the time for creativity and innovation?”
