More marketing spend brings more challenges and complexity
Technology and organizational challenges seem to grow with marketing spend, despite more access to tools, according to data from StackAdapt.
By Mike Pastore , Head of Content & Media
Published on 2026-10-28
Complexity grows for large advertisers
Top-performing marketers take on more complexity than their peers and manage it more effectively, according to data from StackAdapt.
StackAdapt’s “ State of Programmatic Advertising 2027” report (registration required) also found top-performing marketing teams are expanding across channels, data, measurement, and AI while keeping those capabilities working together.
The research shows that marketers are investing in reach. Eighty-three percent of respondents added channels to their marketing mix over the past two to three years. But there remains an opportunity to improve coordination.
Ten percent of respondents say they almost always run truly omnichannel campaigns, and 42% estimate that more than 20% of their programmatic budget is wasted because of siloed or fragmented channel execution, rather than the channels themselves.
Complexity grows for large advertisers
One of the more interesting findings of the report focused on marketers with large budgets, where the challenge shifts from access to alignment.
StackAdapt platform data found advertisers spending more than $10 million annually are more likely to use measurement capabilities (69% vs. 56%) and adopt a broader set of StackAdapt platform features.
But high-spend marketers cite organizational silos (28% vs. 16%) and technology limitations (23% vs. 17%) as barriers to omnichannel strategy more often than mid-spend marketers.
Larger advertisers have access to more sophisticated tools — they’re using measurement capabilities and use more StackAdapt features, for example — but their organizational and technological challenges appear to grow rather than disappear.
It’s entirely possible that for high-spending organizations of a certain scale, spending more money on marketing technology may be less valuable than changing how the marketing organization operates.
Top performers have their data and measurement houses in order
Compared with other respondents, StackAdapt’s report found top performers are:
- More than twice as likely to have expanded their channel mix to three or more channels (45% vs. 21%).
- More likely to use connected customer data (58% vs. 44%).
- More likely to report greater measurement confidence (69% vs. 52%).
- Less likely to report fragmentation-related budget waste (31% vs. 43%).
Overall, the research found only 7% of marketers say they have a fully unified measurement strategy, and most are using several methodologies at once. Marketers using cross-channel attribution report stronger year-over-year performance than non-users (75% vs. 60%) and greater confidence connecting ad investment to results (66% vs. 47%).
Only 45% of marketers say their first-party customer and prospect data is mostly or fully connected across acquisition, conversion, and retention. Among those marketers, 74% report stronger year-over-year performance, compared with 59% of marketers with less connected data.
Among marketers with mostly or fully connected customer data, 79% say AI has improved cross-channel coordination, and they agree that AI only delivers value when the underlying data and measurement are connected and trusted.
The State of Programmatic Advertising 2027 combines proprietary survey research conducted in partnership with NewtonX and StackAdapt’s anonymized platform data. It was fielded July 7–31, 2026, and included 885 brand and agency marketing and advertising professionals, ranging from manager-level roles through the C-suite, at organizations with 100 or more employees across North America, EMEA, and APAC.
Based on a global survey of 885 senior marketing and advertising professionals in addition to anonymized StackAdapt platform data, the report defines top performers as marketers reporting significantly stronger year-over-year performance.