Martech stack complexity fragments audience data

Seventy percent of marketers say identifying audiences across multiple touchpoints is harder than ever. Sixty-six percent report using 16 or more marketing solutions. The findings are based on a Forrester survey of 325 marketers in Q4 2024 powered by TransUnion’s TruAudience.

Forrester concludes that it’s the complexity of the entire suite that creates ever-increasing barriers to delivering personalization, scaling marketing efforts, integrating AI, and effective marketing spend. Conversely, using identity resolution tools to connect the fragmented data in the stack appears to be useful, as 93% of these marketers say they are achieving their customer experience and understanding goals.

Image from research can be downloaded here (no registration required).

Why do we care? To be clear, the TruAudience offering connects your customer data across your marketing platform into a single identity graph. This does not mean that the problem is not real and that one or the other ID resolution tool may help to solve the problem.

One thing to be aware of is that this is a problem that is likely to be more difficult to fix. Not only does the number of types of marketing channels continue to grow (see retail media networks and CTV), but the number of stores within those types continues to grow (see threads). We may see a consolidation of martech stacks due to budget constraints, but don’t bet your budget on it. The Marketing Technology Supergraphic saw a year-on-year increase in the number of available mart apps by 27.8%. Someone is using them.

Dig deeper: 3 approaches to profile merging in identity resolution

Disparate data obscures a single view of the consumer. TransUnion said:

While new touchpoints and technologies present new and exciting opportunities, they also present challenges in connecting all that disparate data. This can create an incomplete picture of consumer behavior…

No matter what industry TransUnion’s TruAudience is in, that statement is certainly accurate.