Marketers Say Their Trust in Measurement Is Stalled

Why It Matters

Facing potential cuts to analytics budgets and tech dissatisfaction, nearly half plan to boost spend on marketing mix modeling and 50% are adopting or planning AI/ML to automate reporting, underscoring urgent pressure to prove incremental ROI and align metrics to business outcomes.

Summary

New research from TransUnion and eMarketer shows marketers’ confidence in measurement has stalled despite growing data complexity: 62% report some confidence, 54% saw no year‑over‑year change and 14% said confidence declined. Internal skepticism is widespread—60% say stakeholders question metrics at least sometimes and nearly 29% have had up to 20% of budgets reallocated due to measurement doubts—while top barriers include siloed data (49%), cross‑channel deduplication (48%) and walled‑garden limits (41%). Facing potential cuts to analytics budgets and tech dissatisfaction, nearly half plan to boost spend on marketing mix modeling and 50% are adopting or planning AI/ML to automate reporting, underscoring urgent pressure to prove incremental ROI and align metrics to business outcomes.