Survey: 58% of Marketers Decreased their Martech Budgets Due to COVID-19

As the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to be felt across the industry, new research is shedding light on how marketers have altered the way they invest and utilize marketing technology (martech).

Gartner recently published the results of its “2020 Marketing Technology Survey: Cost Pressures Force Martech Optimization and Innovation,” and statistics showed that the majority of marketers (58%) decreased their 2020 martech budget as a direct result of the pandemic.

Of those who reduced their budget, 39% shifted their focus to exiting vendors and internal users to further existing tool adoption strategies without having to buy new martech. About 41% increased the use of their current martech stack rather than making new technology investments.

However, it’s worth noting that existing martech teams are only leveraging about 58% of their stacks to date.

Marketing Budgets and the Impact of the Pandemic

This is not the first batch of research to suggest that marketing budgets, in general, have taken a hit as a direct result of the pandemic.

10Fold Communications conducted “The COVID-19 Impact on Marketing Budgets and KPIs for B2B Tech” report, and data showed that 61% of marketing budgets were reduced as a result of COVID-19. Less than 10% of the marketers who were surveyed reported an increase in their budget.

The impact on key performance indicators (KPIs) was not as drastic, however. Most respondents who have KPIs in place (60%) said that they have remained the same throughout the course of the pandemic.