REPORT
The Marketer of 2025
What skills and tools do marketers need to stand out in 2025? We surveyed 1,300+ marketers to find out.
Get startedHow are marketers improving and adjusting their campaigns in 2025? And how are they thinking about the challenges they’ll face?
For this report we surveyed 1,378 marketers around the world to find out about their approaches and plans. Here’s what we’ll cover.
What we learned from 2024
Looking back at 2024 can help us to understand what areas need attention. Here are the challenges marketers are facing – and what we can learn from them.
Content is king
A continued challenge for marketers has been getting their content noticed. Anyone can make a trending video, and consumers are increasingly turning to peer-to-peer content as opposed to content directly from brands. This has made it much harder for branded content to boom.
In fact, 63% of marketers say they’re facing issues with content saturation and quality. They’re feeling the pressure when trying to get their content seen in a busy and complex social landscape.
Limited budgets mean marketers need to think outside the box
Another challenge for marketers has been limited budgets – 51% of marketers are finding economic uncertainty and limited budgets challenging. And even if budgets haven't been cut, dollars aren't always stretching as far as they were a few years ago.
At the same time, 51% of marketers have found measuring ROI challenging. And, more specifically, 40% find measuring the ROI of social media difficult.
“Limited budgets are our biggest challenge – measuring ROI and attribution remains difficult. Lead gen and boosting web traffic are becoming increasingly expensive and challenging as older ways of doing these things become less reliably effective.”
Pressure from stakeholders to accurately calculate ROI, plus challenges with limited budgets, mean marketing teams are heading into 2025 with a need to be as agile as possible to maximize every dollar and to have a solid understanding of the data.
Marketers continue to overcome teething problems with AI
AI has become an unavoidable yet fundamental tool in any marketer’s toolkit. Whether you’re using it to help with content creation, to make sense of data, or to optimize your SEO, artificial intelligence will undeniably help your team’s efficiency. Yet, its newness can come with complications.
AI’s integration with marketing is still in its early stages, and 39% of marketers are finding it difficult to find a balance between AI and human intelligence. This challenge is going to continue to be prominent in 2025. As we discussed in our Digital Marketing Trends report, many marketers believe they’ll face challenges with leveraging AI without losing the ‘human touch.’
This looming problem is exacerbated by a growing demand for brand authenticity from consumers. People are expecting brands to lead with a human-first approach, and some campaigns have been in the firing line for being AI-generated.
Marketing teams will need to strategize around how they can maximize the power of AI, while keeping human-to-human communication at the forefront of campaigns.
Other challenges
Some other challenges marketers are facing include:
- Struggling to adapt to changing consumer behavior (41%)
- Finding it difficult creating personalized experiences (39%)
- Battling with adapting to platform and algorithm changes (36%)
- Facing challenges with lead generation (36%)
So, if your marketing team has faced challenges with content quality, limited budgets, and ROI attribution in 2024 – know you’re not alone. These issues are impacting marketers across the globe.
How should marketers approach data in 2025?
Understanding your customers is vital for any marketing team. Whether you’re struggling to get your social media content in front of consumers, or you’re finding it hard to adapt to changing customer behavior, the answer to your problems will lie in the data.
Leveling up your team’s skills in data collection and analysis can singlehandedly boost your brand’s ability to connect with your customers. You’ll be able to understand their wants, discover where they spend their time, and address their pain points.
With this in mind, it’s no wonder that 79% of marketers agree that data analysis and interpretation will be an important skill for teams in the coming year.
To beat the competition in 2025, marketing teams should place a vigorous focus on data collection and understanding in order to stay ahead.
What's standing in the way to better understanding customers?
When asked about obstacles preventing marketing teams from understanding customers, prospects, and audiences, respondents cited the following:
- 56% said a lack of quality data
- 46% said data fragmentation
- 44% said rapidly changing consumer behavior
- 42% said incomplete customer journey mapping
A lack of quality data is the biggest obstacle for marketers getting to know their customers and prospects in 2025. But why?
There are plenty of reasons your team might struggle here. From not having access to the right tools to the complexities of cross-channel marketing efforts, connecting the dots isn’t always easy.
Equally, it can be challenging to know where you’re going wrong sometimes – is it due to customer behavior changing? Algorithm changes? Or are your campaigns just not up to scratch?
“Knowing if the changes and challenges [our brand faces] are due to buyer behaviors, economic conditions, platform changes, or our own performance is probably our greatest challenge.”
Other key obstacles for marketers include data fragmentation and incomplete journey mapping. From social media platforms to separate CRM systems, marketers now have dozens of different data points to collect customer information. And while this is a good thing, it also means data can be hard to follow.
Some of your audience might engage with your brand through your mailing list. Others might only buy your services through Instagram. A few might even go to your website directly, perhaps using the checkout as a guest. These factors mean that marketing teams need to dive into the nitty gritty – with help from analytics tools – to truly understand their customers.
Where are marketers getting their data?
Let’s see how marketing teams are collecting data. According to our survey, in the last 12 months:
- 69% of marketers used website and app analytics, making it the most used data collection method by marketing teams
- 66% of marketers used surveys and questionnaires
- 64% of marketers used customer feedback and reviews
- 62% of marketers used social listening or consumer research
Website and app analytics are a marketer's bread and butter. Over two thirds of marketers make use of these tools, which are usually freely available – such as Google Analytics or social media’s in-app data. Their accessibility makes them a go-to for marketing teams.
Combining this quantitative data with more qualitative approaches can help teams build a better picture of how their audience interacts with their brand. And that’s why so many marketers use additional data collection methods. Numbers will only show you so much – gathering survey responses or reviews will help you with direct customer feedback. Equally, solid stats and quality data provide tangible evidence of how your customers are interacting with your brand.
If marketers can combine quality data collection with tools and methods that make reading data easy – they’re sure to level up in 2025.
Which tools are marketers using?
Marketers need the right tools to complement their growing skillset.
Tools can be a marketer’s saving grace – especially if you’re struggling to make sense of your data or implement actionable changes. Without the correct tools to make your role easier, your marketing can quickly fall short.
These might be tools to help with competitor analysis, social media scheduling, or influencer management – it’ll depend on your business goals.
Here’s why implementing tools can help marketers.
- They provide real-time insights. Social listening software can help you discover emerging trends, customer preferences, and real-time pain points. And you can find out how your audience feels about your brand right now.
- They make competitor analysis easy. You can use analysis tools to discover exactly how competitors in your industry are winning – and also how they’re falling short.
- They can improve audience engagement. Using the right tools, such as a social media management tool, can help you address customer enquiries immediately.
- They make cross-channel management simple. Make managing multiple social media channels as easy as possible with the right tools.
So, what tools are critical to marketing success? Here’s what our survey found.
- 79% said analytics tools
- 60% said content creation and management tools
- 59% said social media management tools
- 52% said consumer research and social listening tools
Analytics tools were a marketer’s top choice for marketing success, closely followed by content creation and social media management tools.
Marketing teams looking to evaluate their tool stack will benefit from first defining their goals with the software. Assess your current set up, discover what’s working – and where there are gaps. Then research the types of tools which can help you.
Focusing on whether your analytics tools are up to scratch remains a key priority for marketers in 2025. And those who get it right are sure to excel.
Top three focus areas for marketing teams in 2025
Marketing teams need to be strategic with their time in 2025 to stay ahead. Here are some focus areas that demand attention.
1. Plan properly (seriously, we mean it)
Marketing isn’t straightforward – but strategic planning helps. 70% of marketing teams aim to use strategic planning for the year ahead. And those that do it right will be one step ahead of the competition.
“As a brand agency we are finding strategy is becoming more in demand and critical to differentiation.”
Planning isn’t new – not by any means. But it’s something that many marketers leave until it’s too late, which can lead to teams chasing their tail and trying to catch up. Some even bypass it entirely. But trust us – a little planning can make a world of difference.
Strategy looks different for every brand, but here’s a quick checklist to get you started.
- Analyze past performance. How do you know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’re coming from? Review recent campaign data to identify what went right and opportunities to grow.
- Set measurable goals. Define clear, measurable objectives that align with your business’ core priorities.
- Refine your audience segmentation. Create or update your audience personas using recent data. This way you know exactly who you’re targeting.
- Create a content calendar. Which events do you have coming up this year? What campaigns do you want to push? Outline themes and key dates for your marketing team to know about.
- Evaluate your tech stack. Are your tools still serving you? Critically question which upgrades might boost ROI, or if you should let go of anything no longer serving its purpose.
Other planning might include budgeting, implementing localization efforts, or even allocating resources to test emerging social platforms.
With the impact that planning can have on any marketing team, it’s no wonder that 79% of marketers think strategy is an important skill for teams in 2025. So, make sure you do it right.
2. Streamline your data processes
Data drives decisions. And if your data processes are lacking, it’s time to tidy up.
With cross-channel campaigns and data privacy concerns driving deeper data fragmentation, this process can be a bit tricky. Plus, it leads to plenty of admin – 26% of marketers spend over a quarter of their time doing just that. This is time that could be spent generating actionable insights.
Here are some ways you can clean up your data.
- Perform a data audit. Where does your data sit? Is it accessible to everyone who needs it? What datapoints are missing – and which are redundant? Do you have any duplicates? Conducting a proper data audit is a great place to start when looking to streamline your data processes. And remember to do this on a regular basis.
- Standardize your data formats. Ensure and encourage consistency in naming conventions across your team. For example, make sure your date formats are the same.
- Fill in missing data. If you can, use methods like interpolation to address missing links in your data.
- Connect datasets where you can. It won’t always be possible to connect various datasets from different sources. But with data integration tools – and with help from your now-standardized data formats – you can get pretty close.
- Automate where possible. With data cleaning taking up so much time for marketers, automating these processes can be really beneficial.
Now you have a better understanding of your data, enforce proper data validation. Where do you get your data from, and is it always accurate? Prevent errors where you can and keep your data as clean as possible.
3. Upgrade your skillset
Now you have a strategy and the data to support it, what’s left? Your skillset.
Whether you’re looking to grow your team, or you want to invest in your current employees’ personal growth, investing in developing your marketing skillset can help you level up in 2025.
But where do you start? Here are some skills that marketers are focusing on in 2025:
- Data analysis and interpretation (79% agree)
- Strategy (78% agree)
- Content creation and storytelling (78% agree)
- Social media skills (61% agree)
- Project management (53% agree)
- Leadership and management (53% agree)
- ROI measurement and optimization (53% agree)
These results can help highlight some key areas for teams to focus on.
As we mentioned above, data analysis and interpretation are vital for marketing success. Closely following this is content creation and storytelling skills. With a huge 78% of marketers focusing on this in 2025, it’s clear that properly sharing brand values, processes, and products on social will be prioritized. And more than anything, marketers need to continue to be adaptable.
“With ever-evolving technologies and Meta’s frequent algorithm shifts, staying ahead of the curve demands constant adaptation. In today’s marketplace, we’re perpetually pivoting strategies to ensure growth-driven results.”
How to level up in 2025
Struggling with algorithm adaptations? Or rapidly changing consumer expectations? You’re not alone. Marketers across the globe are having difficulty keeping up. But by prioritizing collecting quality data and turning this into impactful insights, you can level up your marketing strategy in 2025.
If you need a hand with gathering and interpreting quality data, Brandwatch can help. Elevate your 2025 marketing strategy today.