Data integration remains the most critical martech challenge
Let’s keep this simple. Most companies still struggle to align their data across systems. Marketing, IT, and C-level teams are often working from different dashboards, different assumptions, and different reports. The tools are powerful, but the data is siloed, fragmented, and slow. That’s a problem, because if you don’t have unified data, every decision is weaker.
Across multiple surveys, one message cuts through: data integration is broken. In the CMO Survey and the MarTech Stack Survey, 65.7% of leaders call data integration their main issue. This isn’t just a low-level marketing operations glitch, it affects your ability to calculate ROI, scale AI programs, and execute unified campaigns.
And CEOs agree. According to Gartner, difficulty in measuring performance outcomes is stopping AI from delivering value. That’s not a small issue. It means leadership can’t prove or replicate results from AI projects. So even after years of digital investment, many companies are stuck. Data can’t move cleanly between systems. Teams can’t build trust in insights. Strategy loses focus. Momentum drops. Integration is the missing link.
Executives need to recognize that technology purchases don’t fix fundamentals. If the foundation, data architecture, governance, accountability mechanisms, is shaky, your martech stack just becomes an expensive list of tools. No magic happens unless the pieces talk to each other. Integration isn’t glamorous, but without it, every other investment has limited payoff. Solve integration first, and your AI models, CRM runs, campaign measurement, everything, gets faster and smarter.
Martech success is more dependent on organizational capabilities than on tool investments
Here’s the truth: organizations are still buying more tools than they can use effectively. The market is full of martech vendors promising seamless automation, perfect customer journeys, and real-time insights. But none of it works when teams don’t speak the same data language, or when strategies shift faster than systems can adapt.
The real edge comes from capabilities, how you organize people, process, and data. Can your teams collaborate across functions? Can your data move at the speed of your decisions? Can your tools prove business value consistently? If not, it doesn’t matter how stacked your software selection is. You’re adding complexity without accelerating performance.
In many cases, the failure starts upstream. Businesses skip right to tools without defining what they’re solving. Core capabilities, like building a shared data dictionary, streamlining governance, and vetting tools for long-term compatibility, are still missing. And without those, scale just amplifies the mess.
For C-suite leaders, this is a capability problem, not a tooling problem. Add tech without capability and you get friction. Build capability first, alignment, transparency, speed, and you get impact. Be deliberate. Push for internal audits. Hold teams accountable to measurable outcomes. Tools don’t drive change. Execution does. And execution only improves when internal maturity catches up with ambition. Better internal coordination always beats better software.
Marketers can play a pivotal role in solving systemic martech and data issues
Marketing leaders are in a strong position to drive change. They sit at the intersection of customer, data, and execution. That proximity gives them insight into how disconnected systems slow growth and how bad data undermines strategy. The opportunity here isn’t about increasing ad spend, it’s about taking accountability for how data flows across the organization.
Marketers can take the lead by identifying where data breaks in the customer journey, documenting those issues with specific business impacts, and collaborating across departments to fix them. They don’t need to own the systems, but they do need to be loud about what’s broken and help shape the fix. When marketers bring clarity around data pain points and turn that into a business case, things start to move.
Cross-functional data initiatives work best when marketing is at the table early. This means setting clear integration goals, defining what success looks like, and staying involved in the implementation. Marketers have to help bridge the mindset gap between technical tools and brand strategy. That means translating business needs into technical priorities, influencing budget conversations, and championing the urgency of data readiness.
For executives, the shift in expectation is clear. Marketers are no longer just operators, they’re strategic connectors. The best ones now lead conversations around customer data architecture, campaign performance measurement, and integrated systems design. If top marketers in your organization are not influencing the data and tech roadmap, that’s a missed opportunity. Give them the room and responsibility. Where marketing leads, better coordination tends to follow.
Enhancing data literacy and establishing martech governance are key
A sophisticated stack doesn’t work without a team that understands how to use it. Data literacy is the baseline. Marketers must be able to analyze performance, identify signals, and communicate insights clearly. This doesn’t require every team member to be a data scientist, but they should be fluent in basic analysis and capable of using data to make better creative and strategic decisions.
Storytelling matters here too. It’s not enough to produce charts. Insights need to drive action, and that means presenting clear narratives to leadership that connect marketing performance to business outcomes. Meanwhile, on the governance side, tech bloat is a real risk. Without regular audits and a defined process for tool evaluation, companies accumulate disconnected platforms that slow them down and drain budgets.
Strong martech governance means knowing what tools actually move the needle and aligning those tools with business goals, not just tactical execution. It requires planning, cross-team collaboration, and a commitment to refining the tech stack over time. Disconnected decisions around tech purchases create fragmentation. Governance keeps everything cohesive and scalable.
For C-suite leaders, this is about discipline. Data fluency and governance must be enforced just like financial controls or security protocols. They’re not optional. Weak data practices don’t just lower efficiency, they distort reality. Without clear governance, you risk constant change without progress. Invest in training. Demand measurement clarity. Require every new tool request to include an ROI case and integration plan. That’s how real maturity is built.
Cross-department collaboration is key to overcome integration challenges
The divide between departments is driving a significant part of the martech underperformance problem. Marketing, IT, sales, and customer service tend to operate under different goals, tools, and data definitions. That separation creates friction. When systems don’t align, insights don’t scale. When teams don’t speak the same language, collaboration slows down or stops.
To drive real results, integration initiatives need shared ownership. Regular alignment meetings between marketing and IT, not after something breaks, but as part of normal operations, are key. Shared data definitions and common performance metrics also matter. Everyone should agree on what a lead means, what engagement means, what success looks like. Lack of alignment at these foundational levels delays decisions and dilutes execution.
Strong collaboration isn’t soft work. It means documenting joint roadmaps, investing in training across functions, and working through technical constraints together. It also requires a clear communication loop for tool changes, system updates, and shared responsibilities. Marketing and IT need to be aligned in both strategic intent and tactical execution. Marketing should be able to translate business needs into technical terms that IT teams can act on. IT should be able to explain trade-offs and constraints without losing momentum on delivery.
For executives, enforcing cross-department accountability is not optional. If technical and business teams operate independently, integration efforts will fail, no matter the budget. Clear leadership expectations, shared KPIs, and unified timelines are how collaboration scales. The challenge isn’t more technology. It’s aligning people to make the technology useful. Ownership needs to cross department lines. Ensure marketing and IT leads are building together, not waiting on each other.
Variations in survey methodologies
The three surveys, Duke’s CMO Survey, MarTech’s State of Your Stack, and Gartner’s CEO Survey, don’t use the same frameworks, audiences, or terminology. But that’s not the key issue. What matters is that all point in the same direction: organizations still aren’t managing tech, or the data tied to it, effectively.
Marketing leaders cite stack complexity and integration problems. CEOs say AI isn’t delivering measurable returns. Operations teams note friction in deploying tools. Regardless of the metric, the pattern holds, companies are investing heavily in tools without fully assessing their internal readiness.
This isn’t about comparing exact numbers. It’s about how consistent the warning signs are. That consistency tells you something fundamental is being missed: the maturity of how your company manages tech. Not the tools in isolation, but the governance, coordination, and ability to turn tools into results. Without that maturity, movement stops. Integration projects stall. New platforms underperform. Measurement becomes fragmented and unreliable.
For executive teams, this is a signal to pause and evaluate. Don’t just track tool usage or campaign outputs. Look deeper. How are decisions made about new tools? Who owns integration, and how is that ownership enforced? Are your teams aligned in their understanding of what tech is supposed to drive? Use consistent pain points as a reason to reassess, not your technology, but your structure, your talent, and your internal accountability. Solving tech underperformance starts with auditing how you manage complexity.
Marketers must transition from being mere tool users to becoming strategic tech enablers
Today’s marketing leaders are expected to do more than launch campaigns, they’re expected to influence tech strategy and business growth. The shift is clear. If marketers are only managing assets and pushing messages without shaping system design or integration strategy, they’re not meeting the expectations of a digitally mature organization.
Forward-looking marketing leadership means having a voice in tool selection, integration planning, and budget conversations with IT and operations. It means understanding how technical architecture impacts campaign delivery and customer experience. This isn’t about turning marketers into engineers. It’s about empowering them to translate customer needs and commercial goals into functional system requirements.
Marketers should be the ones ensuring martech tools align with measurable business outcomes. If tools aren’t integrated, if campaigns can’t be tracked across platforms, if the customer journey isn’t visible end to end, marketing needs to push harder. They need to define the gap, escalate the impact, and recommend solutions rooted in business logic. This includes leading pilot programs that prove the value of integration, developing assessments of stack efficiency, and taking responsibility for the business cases tied to tech investments.
From an executive standpoint, this role expansion is necessary. If marketing isn’t driving cross-functional tech alignment, no one else will do it with the same urgency or customer focus. Give your marketing leaders the mandate to collaborate deeply with IT, own parts of the integration roadmap, and challenge outdated buying behaviors. Great marketers don’t just optimize campaigns, they help build the platforms that make performance possible. Treat them as strategic enablers. Hold them accountable for results, not just activity. That’s where marketing starts leading transformation, not sitting on the sidelines of it.
Recap
Technology only delivers when the organization is ready to use it. That’s the core lesson across all the data, and it’s not a tech problem, it’s a leadership one. Data integration, tool alignment, and measurement clarity aren’t challenges to delegate. They’re strategic priorities that cut directly into your ability to compete and grow.
If marketing isn’t connected to IT, if tools aren’t producing unified insights, if business impact can’t be measured end-to-end, then you’re not extracting value. You’re funding complexity. The shift isn’t about more software. It’s about operational maturity, team alignment, and giving the right people authority across systems.
Executives set the conditions. If the structure rewards speed without integration, or volume without clarity, the stack expands while performance lags. Instead, hold your teams to a higher standard, shared definitions, true collaboration, and visible ROI. The capabilities you need are already inside your organization. The challenge is enabling them. And the time to do that is now.
