Smartsheet Pulse of Marketing Report Shows Marketing Teams Rethinking How to Demonstrate Business Impact

Smartsheetthe AI-enhanced enterprise task management platform, has announced the release of its Pulse of Marketing Report 2025. This comprehensive study aggregates insights from more than 1,200 marketing and creative professionals in all States United, and crystallizes the growing need for marketing teams to demonstrate measurable business impact and the critical role of technology in demonstrating value.

“As a career marketer, I can attest to the increasing pressure to show ROI”

“Today’s marketing and creative teams often struggle to provide tangible evidence of their strategic value and business impact,” said John Newall, SVP, Marketing, Smartsheet. “The Pulse of Marketing Report highlights the importance of leveraging the right tools and technologies, such as AI and collaborative work management platforms, to help marketing and creative teams stay aligned, regardless of project complexity or workforce distribution. It also emphasizes how critical it is to use these same technologies to provide a richer and more accurate view of these teams’ influence on business results. and profitability.

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Key insights from the report include:

1. Marketers and creatives are under pressure to demonstrate business impact

• More than 80% of professionals surveyed feel increased pressure to prove the business impact of their work, with 60% noting that this pressure has intensified in the past year.
• More than three-quarters (78%) of respondents feel they must demonstrate that they add value to their organizations more than peers in other departments or roles.
• About half (51%) of survey respondents believe marketing teams are viewed as strategic partners in their organizations, underscoring the need for better visibility and reporting.

2. Marketers struggle to demonstrate their personal business impact

• Almost all (94%) marketing and creative professionals surveyed face challenges when demonstrating the business impact of their work.
• Almost all respondents (95%) face challenges in making business decisions, with more than half (53%) lacking visibility into the information they need.
• The report shows that access to high-quality data significantly increases team effectiveness and reputation. A strong correlation (57%) exists between employees who always have the right information and those who see the marketing team as a strategic partner.

3. Marketing teams want access to better tools

• The report highlights the need for better tools and standardized processes, with 87% of professionals believing that improved technology will increase efficiency and the ability to demonstrate impact.
• Almost 72% of respondents switch between tools, wasting an average of 7.3 hours per week, making it difficult to prove their impact.
• Smartsheet research shows that AI can increase productivity, with marketing and creative professionals saving more than nine hours per week on average. Most (84%) save about five or more hours per week with AI, including 30% who save more than 10 hours.

“As a career marketer, I can attest to the increasing pressure to demonstrate ROI,” said Courtney Finger, Principal, Product Marketing Operations, Conga. “Work management tools like Smartsheet have allowed us to create visibility on the critical results that our marketing team is driving. The platform has been a game changer, simplifying our project management processes and strengthening the collaboration. By leveraging these tools, we can clearly demonstrate ROI through real-time data and analytics, ensuring that every decision is backed by solid evidence and measurable results.”

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Exploitation of obstacles

The research uncovered several strategies that could help marketers and creatives demonstrate their value, including:

• Proving impact is challenging, but technology can help. Technology, especially AI and project management tools, offers a solution by simplifying workflows, improving efficiency and enabling teams to better demonstrate their strategic value.
• Standardized processes and visibility are crucial. Improved processes and visibility into project and campaign data enable better decision-making and make it easier to demonstrate impact.