Top 5 Marketing Challenges for 2025 (and how to overcome them)

With a wider remit than ever before, marketers today face a range of challenges. As the pace of change accelerates and businesses adapt to evolving market conditions, marketing has become a cornerstone for driving growth and resilience in increasingly dynamic environments.

In this article, we consider what challenges are being faced by today’s marketers, how to recognise them and the tools you need to overcome them.

This article was first written in 2019, updated in 2025.

One: Demonstrating marketing’s value to the business

Marketing is a critical business function that drives growth and creates a commercial advantage for any organisation. However, 54% of marketers (Impact of marketing report 1: Rebuilding customer experiences 2022) believe that marketing is poorly understood and 40% find it difficult to explain the role of marketing to others. 

This leaves marketers feeling that they are undervalued in their organisation. In fact, 10% believe that colleagues have no understanding of the value of marketing to the business at all. However, recognition is growing among business leaders of marketing’s role in building customer relationships and driving revenue, as evidenced by global trends in marketing spend. The latest figures from WARC show that marketing budgets are reaching heights never seen before as brands invest in new technologies and strategies to stay competitive. Global ad investment has more than doubled over the last decade and has grown 2.8x faster than global economic output since 2014 with further growth expected in 2025 and 2026.

How to demonstrate the value of marketing to your leadership team:

• Align marketing metrics with business goals
  
  What to do: Identify metrics that directly tie marketing efforts to organisational priorities, such as revenue growth, customer acquisition, retention or market share expansion.
  
  How to do it:
  
  • Track KPIs like ROI, customer acquisition cost (CAC) and lifetime value (LTV).
  • Set clear, measurable objectives for each campaign, such as increasing sales by 15% or generating 500 new leads.
  
  Why it matters: When marketing metrics align with broader business objectives, it’s easier to demonstrate the direct impact on growth and profitability.
  
  
• Showcase campaign performance through storytelling
  
  What to do: Present data in a way that tells a compelling story about marketing’s contribution to the business.
  
  How to do it:
  
  • Highlight the customer journey by linking marketing touchpoints (e.g. social media ads, email campaigns) to conversions or sales.
  • Share real-life examples or case studies of successful campaigns, such as "Our targeted email series led to a 25% increase in returning customers."
  
  Why it matters: Numbers alone can be abstract; combining them with stories helps leadership understand marketing’s tangible impact.
  
  
• Provide clear, visual reporting
  
  What to do: Create concise, visually engaging reports tailored for senior leadership.
  
  How to do it:
  
  
  • Use dashboards or tools like Tableau, Power BI or Google Data Studio to present data.
  • Include visuals like charts, graphs and year-on-year comparisons to make insights easier to digest.
  • Structure reports to include three sections: successes, challenges and actionable recommendations. 
  
  Why it matters: A well-presented report makes it easier for leadership to grasp the value of marketing efforts at a glance.
  
  

Two: Bridging the marketing skills gap 

Marketing as a function continues to diversify. Digital technology constantly evolves, job roles become more specialised, and the skills gap widens. This impacts productivity and growth, while also leaving businesses under-utilising a wealth of talented professionals.

79% of marketers believe the skill set required for the job has completely changed over the last decade and are lacking confidence in certain areas. It’s vital that organisations prioritise and invest in training and development. Upskilling an employee not only fills the skills gap that could be impacting productivity, but also increases job satisfaction and leaves the worker feeling they are valued and less likely to leave. 

“This latest research should act as a wake-up call for marketers to invest in their training and development. The range of skills expected from marketing professionals continues to expand, which gives us new opportunities to drive change and demonstrate our industry’s value. But to do this, it is vital marketers stay on the forefront of the skills required for the job  – or they risk getting left behind.”
– Chris Daly, chief executive, CIM (Digital benchmark report 2022)

This also includes those in management-level roles. Target Internet’s recent Digital Marketing Skills Benchmark found that the more senior an employee is, the better their skills in many cases. However, this stagnates if they are not continually upskilling themselves.

As businesses are struggling to attract and retain top talent, particularly outside of major cities, ensuring your organisation is equipped with the skills it needs to succeed – of which marketing is undoubtedly one – is an increasing challenge. And marketing’s widened remit, with a focus on customer experience, data, digital and sales, has blurred the lines between departments and organisational structures.

With non-marketing-focused departments often being those that directly interact with the customer and control key marketing channels, it is an increasing challenge for marketing to work across functions and fulfil its remit.  

“Continued professional development has never been so important as we continue to navigate our way through long-term periods of uncertainty and an ever-changing landscape.”
– Chris Daly, chief executive, CIM (Digital benchmark report 2022)

Three: Understanding customer behaviour

CIM’s Impact of Marketing Report found that marketers are keenly aware that buying habits have changed in recent years. A considerable 59% said they’re finding it harder to predict changing consumer priorities and over a quarter (28%) believe their brand is out of touch with changing consumer needs. 

With marketers increasingly tasked with interpreting and predicting consumer behaviour, keeping a finger on the pulse of changing customer trends and expectations has always been a priority – but anticipating these in a fast-changing world is harder than ever. 

“We are living through extremely turbulent times; from the pandemic and the ongoing climate crisis  – to rising inflation, and most recently the Ukraine crisis. It’s clear [...] that consumers now expect brands to do more than just deliver value, but also actively engage with societal and political issues. If our industry is to really bounce back, marketers must invest time in getting to know their customers, and carefully consider what matters to them most.”  
– Chris Daly, chief executive, CIM (Digital benchmark report 2022)  

Although the report found that the top considerations for customers are convenience (83%) and value for money (78%), it also discovered that 78% of marketers surveyed stated that a company’s performance around their environmental impact and societal issues, including diversity and inclusion (74%), are a large part of their customers’ buying habits. 

A positive sign within the industry, marketers are now experimenting with new ways to engage customers, testing new technologies and adapting to how they use their channels.

How to get to know your customers better

• Use data to map changing customer preferences
  
  What to do: Regularly analyse customer data to identify shifts in buying habits, preferences and priorities.
  
  How to do it:
  
  • Leverage tools like Google Analytics, social media insights or customer feedback platforms (e.g. SurveyMonkey, Trustpilot). 
  • Segment your audience based on demographics, behaviours and purchasing patterns.
  
  Why it matters: Staying informed about customer trends ensures your strategies remain relevant and effective.
  
  
• Engage customers directly to gather insights
  What to do: Create opportunities for direct dialogue with your audience to better understand their needs.
  
  How to do it:
  
  • Run focus groups, social media polls or customer interviews. 
  • Use Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys to gauge satisfaction and gather feedback.
  
  Why it matters: Direct engagement uncovers deeper insights that go beyond data, building stronger customer relationships.
  
  

Four: Fortify your digital marketing strategy

In a world where digital technologies are moving faster than many businesses can keep pace with, organisations must evaluate what skills and technologies are required to reach, engage and add value to their customers, with the ultimate goal to deliver growth and stay relevant. Target Internet’s Digital Marketing Skills Benchmark, in association with CIM, highlights some worrying trends about how up-to-date marketers are with the latest technology.

The research revealed skills gaps in analytics and content marketing across all seniority levels and industries. Furthermore, it found that those marketers in senior roles lacked working knowledge of SEO, social media and programmatic advertising, posing questions about how readily they would invest in any of these tactics without a strategic understanding of their value.

Gaining insight from digital is also an increasing challenge. With more data than ever before pumping through digital platforms, finding ways to interpret and draw insight from these information streams is vital, particularly in the current regulatory landscape.

How to build a robust digital marketing strategy 

1. Conduct a digital audit
   What to do: Review your website, SEO and digital advertising efforts to identify gaps or inefficiencies.
   How to do it: Use tools such as Google Analytics, Meta business suite, and SEMRush to collect performance insights across your digital channels.
   Evaluate campaign results to identify underperforming areas.
   Why it matters: A solid digital foundation is critical for driving growth and engagement.
   
   
2. Adopt a data-driven approach
   What to do: Prioritise decisions based on analytics and customer insights to optimise campaigns.
   How to do it: Use tools like Google Data Studio or Tableau to track and visualise key metrics. Regularly review campaign performance and pivot strategies when necessary.
   Why it matters: Data-driven strategies increase ROI and ensure resources are used efficiently.
   
   

Five: Boost your growth on a budget

As we said earlier, marketing teams are striving to demonstrate how they’re delivering growth in order to prove their value. However, creating and communicating meaningful business growth can feel challenging, particularly for SMEs.

Often marketing capabilities are limited in function, due to a lack of investment. Small and medium businesses can be nimble, creative and entrepreneurial, but often with smaller resources. This is particularly acute for small businesses, where often marketing capabilities are limited in function due to a lack of investment.

Opportunities for growth must be identified and utilised by SME marketers. But securing investment and taking a long-term view as to the value of marketing can be difficult in a small business, where there are often seen to be more urgent priorities. Establishing marketing as a function capable of delivering commercial advantage is crucial.

The IPA Bellwether Report for Q2 2022 concluded that marketing budgets across the UK have increased, although it also predicts that the next four years look uncertain. Yet, in times of economic uncertainty, there is still good news to be found. With limitation comes innovation, resulting in marketers making the most of their marketing budget to make a positive impact in the year to come.

Maximising growth with limited resources requires strategic focus on the fundamentals. By addressing each of the challenges covered in this article – proving marketing’s value, upskilling teams, understanding customer behaviour and strengthening your digital strategy – marketers can ensure their efforts are efficient and impactful.

Gain more insights into how your audience perceives value and how you can use this in your integrated marketing communications strategy with our Marketing Communications Planning course.