At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, marketing technology was one area that remained unscathed from initial budget cuts. New findings from the Gartner Marketing Technology Survey 2020 reveal that nearly 60% of marketing technology leaders expect moderate to severe cuts to their martech budgets as a result of coronavirus-related disruptions.
These reductions come at a time when martech stack utilization remains a struggle for many marketing organizations. Marketing leaders report they still utilize only 58% of their martech stack’s full breadth of capabilities — a level that has remained flat since 2019.
As marketers invest in tools and add-on applications that ultimately go unused, this underutilized technology drains resources away from other programs. Interestingly, 66% of respondents facing a pandemic-related cut to their martech budgets have delayed a purchase of at least one previously approved marketing technology.