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As marketing teams head into 2025, the pressure to deliver measurable impact is higher than ever. Our latest survey of global marketing and analytics leaders reveals three critical data challenges shaping the year ahead and how the most successful teams are addressing them.
As 2025 begins, marketing and analytics teams face growing pressure to do more with less. More insight. More efficiency. More impact. All while navigating increased complexity, rising expectations and less tolerance for inconsistent or incomplete data.
To understand how teams are adapting, we surveyed several hundred marketing and analytics leaders across industries and markets. The goal was not just to identify how data is being used but to surface where progress is being made and where critical gaps remain.
Three themes stood out. Together, they paint a clear picture of what separates the teams that are scaling insight into performance from those still reacting to reporting breakdowns.
When asked to reflect on the biggest challenges to proving the business impact of marketing, most respondents pointed not to strategy or tooling but to the data structure itself.
While dashboards and attribution tools have evolved, the quality and consistency of inputs continue to be the limiting factor.
Sixty-seven percent of leaders say their ability to prove impact is limited by inconsistent data collection practices.
This is not just about missing metrics. It is about alignment. When data is collected differently across platforms, regions or teams using varied naming conventions or inconsistent tracking methods, even the best tools struggle to produce meaningful insight.
In practice, this results in lost visibility, misattributed performance and slower decisions. The numbers may look clean, but the source of truth remains fragmented. Without a shared data language across the organization, insights get lost in translation.
The second trend is one marketers are all too familiar with. Data remains siloed. And the consequences are no longer just an internal reporting issue. They are slowing down performance and limiting growth.
Seventy-three percent of respondents say their current data setup is holding them back from reaching business goals and outperforming the market.
Despite investments in analytics platforms, the day-to-day execution of marketing still relies on distributed processes. Teams report managing an average of 8.4 dashboards across campaigns, each tied to different tools, vendors and internal stakeholders.
Even minor inconsistencies in how campaigns are tagged or named across these systems can create blind spots. Performance data becomes fragmented. Insights become delayed. And marketers spend more time fixing reports than acting on them.
At the same time, 61 percent of leaders now view the quality of their collected marketing data as a key differentiator between gaining or losing market share.
The challenge is no longer the number of tools in use. It is the lack of alignment in how data is structured across them. Enterprise marketing will always involve multiple platforms and partners. The difference is whether data moves between those systems with consistency or contradiction.
For years, data governance has been discussed as a strategic initiative, often included in long-term roadmaps or innovation goals. That conversation has shifted. In 2025, governance is no longer viewed as an aspirational future state. It has become a priority.
Sixty-three percent of leaders say they are actively investing in improvements to how marketing data is collected. One third have allocated budget specifically to data governance. Only four percent plan to continue with their current approach.
This shift is not just internal. Leading global brands such as Qualcomm have spoken publicly about the role data governance plays in enabling faster decisions and stronger performance across regions. The message is clear.
Standardizing how data is named, structured and activated is no longer a back office concern. It is the foundation for campaign performance, customer experience and competitive advantage.
Case studies from companies like Kerzner and Volvo reinforce what survey data shows. Teams that invest in structure early see significant gains in how they activate data and measure performance.
Here is what changes when governance comes first:
Data quality is no longer a nice to have. It is a multiplier. Industry benchmarks show that even a one percent improvement in data quality can lead to a 0.13 to 0.25 percent increase in annual revenue. At enterprise scale, that is a material return.
For teams looking to benchmark their current state, visibility is the first step. Accutics offers TrackCheck, a free and practical diagnostic that evaluates how your paid campaigns are tagged and structured across two selected channels.
It highlights gaps in alignment, inconsistencies in naming and areas where attribution may be weakened before it ever reaches your dashboard.
The takeaway from this year’s survey is clear. Marketing leaders are no longer waiting to fix data issues after launch. They are making structured data part of the launch plan itself.
In 2025, the question is no longer whether governance matters. It is how fast you can operationalize it.
The biggest challenge is inconsistent data collection across platforms and teams. Sixty-seven percent of marketing leaders say this lack of structure limits their ability to prove the business impact of their work.
Despite using advanced analytics tools, most enterprise teams operate across multiple dashboards and disconnected systems. This creates fragmented performance data and delays insights that could drive decision making.
When data is collected and named consistently, it enables better attribution, faster insights and more confident campaign activation across all channels. Structured data turns marketing into a measurable and scalable function.
Data governance has become a top priority for many organizations. Sixty-three percent are actively investing in better data practices and one third have dedicated budget to governance efforts to stay competitive.
Accutics offers a free tool called TrackCheck that audits how paid campaigns are currently tagged and structured. It helps identify gaps, inconsistencies and opportunities to improve data accuracy across platforms.