The B2B marketing sector is under “unprecedented strain”, a new report has warned.
In a survey of 1,000 marketers and tech buyers in the UK and US, 53% described their working environment as chaotic, burnout, fatigue and heightened stress was a problem for over a third, and almost three quarters said they are not sleeping properly.
Processes are also a problem, the report by global B2B marketing agency Tmp said, with product (40%), partner (29%) and demand (28%) identified as the most disconnected areas of the marketing function.
Fragmentation creating stalled deals, inconsistent quality of work and missed opportunities were all reported as key challenges for marketers.
The study warned that with marketing, sales and partners not aligned, buyers are feeling the effects. Deals now involve 11 or more stakeholders, while too much content (34%), unclear vendor messaging (31%) and lack of trust (33%) are major obstacles in the buying journey, it said.
Ali Hussain, chief strategy officer at Tmp, said:
“CMOs and other revenue leaders need to stop playing whack-a-mole with surface-level symptoms and address the underlying challenges. Namely, that an increasingly chaotic environment is constantly pulling people, organisations, brands and customer journeys apart. As the research shows, marketers are losing sleep. Teams are misaligned. Brands are being diluted and buying groups are struggling to reach consensus.
“In 2026, marketing teams are being asked to do more with less, to use AI, to move faster. That’s exacerbating the problem – they’re scaling fragmentation. Instead, marketers need to focus on creating coherence across data, strategy, creative, media and sales, from reputation-building to revenue and on through retention. It’s better for brands, and 97% of buyers agree it’s better for them. Scale chaos, and you scale pain. Scale coherence, and you scale revenue.”