How Are Marketers Doing?

The State of Marketing Professionals in 2025

Behind marketing is marketers. That much is obvious. 

But in trying to understand the effectiveness of our profession, the research we most regularly see turns to the tools of our trade, rather than the folks creating and implementing them.

Now is an interesting time to be a human, but also a marketer. The latest World Uncertainty Index revealed that uncertainty is soaring, hitting the highest levels we’ve seen since 2020. And uncertainty doesn’t feel good for business – or the folks in it.

Source: https://worlduncertaintyindex.com/

So, we wanted to ask – “how are marketers doing?”. 

The industry spoke up.1,070 responses later – we’ve got the answers. A big thank you to everyone who took part.

There are three focus areas in this report:

1) Marketers’ feelings about their roles,
2) The challenges they face day-to-day, and
3) Their thoughts on AI’s role in marketing.

Ready to dive in? Let’s go.

1. How Marketers Are Feeling: The Emotional Landscape

The Daily Reality: Positively Challenging, But…

When we asked 1,070 marketers to describe their emotional state, the responses paint quite a picture. “Positively challenging” tops the list with 489 respondents, which is a lovely phrase, isn’t it? It acknowledges the difficulty while focusing on the growth that comes from it.

But let’s not sugar-coat things – hot on its heels are “uncertain” (431), “stressful” (409), and “overwhelming” (385). 

The good vibes aren’t absent though. “Enjoyable” (384) and “rewarding” (323) made strong showings. Marketing in 2025 seems to be a profession where the highs are high, but so are the challenges.

Perhaps most telling is how few marketers described their work as “calm” (just 56 respondents) or “balanced” (160). As one respondent observed: “I find the speed of technology change (including AI) overwhelming. I used to love this aspect of our industry – learning new ways of doing things, improving connections and efficiency etc. But now there is such a constant firehose of information and new tech, it’s hard to keep up.”

The Optimism Paradox: Better Days Ahead?

While feelings about current roles are all over the place, there’s striking optimism about marketing’s future.

Current job satisfaction forms a classic bell curve centered around 7, with folks scattered across the entire spectrum. Some marketers are thriving, others are just getting by, and a chunk are genuinely struggling. As one respondent confessed: “I’m definitely in a period of thinking I should get out of marketing.”

But flip to questions about marketing’s future, and suddenly the mood brightens. Responses cluster heavily around scores of 7-8, with hardly anyone rating below 4.

This gap between today’s reality and tomorrow’s potential feels particularly meaningful. Despite whatever frustrations they battle daily, marketers remain true believers in their profession’s trajectory.

Team Size Matters: Finding the Collaboration Sweet Spot

When we dug into the numbers, we found your team setup makes a real difference to responses.

• Mid-sized teams (6-10 folks) hit the satisfaction sweet spot (6.5), where collaboration and clarity seem perfectly balanced
• Solo marketers face unique challenges, with the lowest optimism scores. As one lone marketer shared: “I’d love a session for solo marketers, especially those with a Manager/CEO who has no marketing background, it’s like swimming through treacle.”
• Larger teams (31-50) are most optimistic about marketing’s future (7.3), possibly because they have resources to experiment with emerging trends
• The largest departments (51+) see satisfaction dip (6.2) – suggesting bureaucracy may cancel out some benefits of scale. As one respondent in a large organization noted: “Work in the UK for a large American corporate company – have noticed the siloed working is intense and communication is poor.”

The takeaway? The right-sized team for the right job makes a massive difference in marketing happiness.

The Seniority Effect: Freedom Makes a Difference

Your position on the org chart dramatically shapes your marketing experience:

• Owners and founders report the highest satisfaction with their current roles – autonomy correlates with happiness. As one owner reflected: “Having been ‘big’ then small to running now two companies, as I’ve got older, I’m far less tolerant of bullshit clients and unrealistic briefs. I only work with people I really respect and like.”
• Mid-level managers face the greatest squeeze, carrying responsibility without full authority. One manager shared: “I’ve been in marketing for over a decade and am seeing a real shift… it means us managers are doing most of the work and not enough time for strategy.”
• Junior marketers experience the highest levels of second-guessing but maintain faith in the profession’s future

A concerning thread emerged around career advancement, with one respondent asking: “Are those at the top still looking to promote? I feel like many of us 10-12 years into our careers, are stuck at middle management because there’s not enough senior marketing roles to go around.”

The AI Divide: A New Chapter in Marketing Happiness

We can’t write this report without referencing AI. is how attitudes toward AI correlate with overall outlook:

• AI enthusiasts (“I love using it”) report dramatically higher satisfaction across all metrics: current role (6.8), industry future (7.3), and AI itself (7.8). One enthusiast shared: “AI will help marketing get back to its roots with brand strategy and has been able to help smaller teams manage and accomplish more.”
• AI avoiders show significantly lower optimism: current role (5.9), industry future (5.9), and AI itself (just 3.3). As one noted: “I think the pressure to use AI is overwhelming. I don’t see the value of it right now in my business.”
• Those who find AI anxiety-inducing show similar patterns to avoiders, especially in their low AI optimism (3.2)
• Pragmatic users who say “It’s helped me save time” fall in the middle with moderate optimism (6.3)

The nearly two-point gap in job satisfaction between AI enthusiasts and avoiders (6.8 vs. 5.9) is one of the starkest divides we found. Your relationship with AI isn’t just about technology preferences – it’s becoming a defining factor in marketing experiences.

One thoughtful respondent captured the nuance perfectly: “I believe there are two possible futures, one where AI enables marketers to think more about markets, customers and context (getting back to what marketing is all about) or a future where we prize volume and velocity and see it as a route to cut headcount.”

Connecting the Dots: The Full Emotional Picture

When we step back and look at the full emotional landscape, a compelling picture emerges. Marketers today are navigating uncertainty while maintaining hope, experiencing stress while finding reward, and facing isolation while seeking community.

The presence of “lonely” (339 respondents) aligns with our finding that solo marketers report lower satisfaction. Meanwhile, the divide between AI enthusiasts and avoiders mirrors broader questions about marketing’s technological future.

The standout finding? Despite these very real challenges, “positively challenging” still claims the top emotional spot. This captures the essence of marketing in 2025 – a profession that tests you, stretches you, but ultimately rewards those who persist.

2. The Challenges Marketers Face: Time Squeezed, Creativity Crushed

Top Challenges: The Three Pressure Points

Our survey reveals that while marketers face many challenges, they cluster into three fundamental pressure points: time scarcity, resource constraints, and process friction.

These aren’t just occasional annoyances – they’re regular realities. “Too much to do, not enough time” tops the chart with a frequency of nearly 2.75 (on a scale where 0 = never and 4 = daily). That means the average marketer experiences this time crunch between weekly and almost daily.

As one respondent put it: “I’m in year 5 of budget down, targets up. It’s not cool, I’m moving on soon. Is it normal to burn out and move on every few years?”

But here’s the good news: understanding these patterns creates concrete opportunities for improvement. The challenges are real, but they’re not insurmountable.

Time & Workload: The Creative Drought

Time scarcity emerges as marketing’s most pervasive challenge by a significant margin. “Too much to do, not enough time” dominates across every team size and seniority level, with managers feeling it most acutely (2.93).

This constant rush creates a direct casualty: creative thinking. “Not enough space/time to be creative” ranks second overall, with scores between 2.3-2.7 across most segments. As one respondent shared: “I came to marketing for creativity but spend my days managing a never-ending task list.”

The qualitative comments repeatedly highlight this creative drought. One marketer observed: “Owners/founders/managers need better understanding of how creativity works. It’s not a ketchup bottle you need to whack harder—that will get less out, not more!”

This time pressure leads to fragmented attention (“Hard to concentrate or stay on task” ranks third), creating a vicious cycle where distraction makes tasks take longer, which increases time pressure.

The solo marketer experience emerges as a particularly intense version of these time pressures. As one respondent described: “Working in a small business, being a team of one and having to be strategic and then tactical is really hard – context switching is an undervalued skill and it’s mentally exhausting.”

Resource & Support: Making Magic with What You Have

Beyond time limitations, marketers face significant resource and support gaps that create real friction.

“High expectations with limited support” emerged as a frequent pain point (2.15 overall), particularly for directors (2.33) caught between executive expectations and frontline realities.

The marketing identity crisis emerged repeatedly in comments: “I think marketing is having a little bit of an identity crisis. Too many job roles have become really fragmented to the point where their impact is diminished,” observed one respondent. Another lamented: “I still struggle with getting the leadership team to understand what marketing is and the value it CAN bring.”

Data limitations present another key struggle, scoring 2.12 overall and higher in larger teams. As one respondent shared: “I find it very hard to visualise how my skills are aligned with where the industry is going. Tracking that is the hard part.”

Support constraints manifest differently across organization sizes. Smaller teams report more acute resource limitations but less process friction. Larger teams have more resources but struggle with utilization and coordination. As one marketer noted: “We have a big budget, but it takes so long to access it that opportunities pass us by.”

Process & Communication: Breaking Through the Bottlenecks

Operational friction forms the third major challenge category – and often the most addressable.

Approval delays (“Getting sign-off takes too long”), brief quality issues (“Unclear/changing briefs”), and alignment problems (“Teams not aligned or communicating well”) create significant drag on marketing effectiveness.

One respondent captured this friction perfectly: “I’ve found the biggest challenge in marketing is getting stakeholders to understand marketing and timescales.” Another described a common scenario: “My biggest challenge right now is working in a very regulated industry which has strict processes regarding procurement and cyber – use of AI is very limited and sign-off on new software takes MONTHS.”

Communication challenges intensify dramatically with team size. “Teams not aligned or communicating well” scores just 1.80 for solo marketers but jumps to 2.67 for the largest teams – one of the most dramatic increases across our dataset.

Validation uncertainty emerges as a particularly troubling process challenge. “Second-guessing ideas or work” ranks fourth overall (2.18), indicating widespread uncertainty about the quality and impact of marketing efforts. The qualitative comments reveal how deeply this affects marketers: “I have imposter syndrome – I fell into marketing so don’t have an education in it, everything has been learned on the job.”

The Challenge Matrix: Finding Your Path

The heatmaps reveal fascinating patterns in how challenges vary across different contexts:

• Solo marketers struggle with concentration and second-guessing but avoid alignment issues – isolation has both costs and benefits
• Small teams (2-5) report the most acute time pressures as they handle diverse responsibilities with limited headcount. One respondent described the reality: “I’m left with the feeling that we can never quite get ahead of the curve. Marketing is constantly changing, we need to run to stand still.”
• Mid-sized teams (6-10) show relatively balanced challenge profiles – perhaps explaining their higher overall satisfaction
• Larger teams (11-50+) see dramatic spikes in communication challenges and meeting burden

Across seniority levels, distinct patterns emerge:

• Managers bear the heaviest overall burden – caught in the middle and feeling it from all sides
• Directors face the greatest support-expectation gaps – expected to deliver strategy while often pulled into execution
• Junior marketers experience more second-guessing – still developing confidence in their decisions. As one junior shared: “A key struggle in marketing I have found – especially being so early on in my career – is that there’s never any intro to marketing. Even if you do a course, you’re being told theory.”
• Owners/founders report the lowest challenge levels – autonomy clearly reduces certain frictions

These patterns suggest that while challenges are universal in marketing, their specific nature varies predictably based on context – creating opportunities for targeted solutions and strategic career planning.

What This Means for Marketing Teams

These findings offer clear guidance for marketing leaders looking to improve team effectiveness and satisfaction:

1. Protect creative time – The data makes clear that marketers at all levels need dedicated space for creative thinking. Consider implementing “meeting-free days” or creative blocks that remain sacred.
2. Streamline approval processes – Address sign-off delays that create significant friction, especially in larger organizations. Several respondents mentioned this specific pain point as a major constraint on their effectiveness.
3. Rethink meeting culture – As teams grow beyond 10 folks, meeting burden increases dramatically. Consider audit processes to eliminate low-value meetings and ensure the right folks (not everyone) are in each discussion.
4. Support the middle – Managers and directors report the most acute time pressures and limited support. They need additional resources or authority to manage the squeeze they’re experiencing.
5. Build validation mechanisms – The high prevalence of second-guessing suggests marketers need better ways to validate their work and measure impact. Clear, realistic KPIs and accessible data interpretation tools could help.
6. Consider team structure carefully – The data suggests optimal team sizes might exist for different challenges. Consider whether your marketing department might function better as several smaller pods rather than one large team.

The good news? Understanding these patterns gives marketing leaders concrete ways to address the challenges their teams face, potentially improving both day-to-day experience and overall optimism about marketing roles.

3. AI in Marketing: A New Dimension of Professional Experience

Our data reveals that AI isn’t just changing how marketers work – it’s becoming a significant predictor of overall professional satisfaction.

The most striking finding is the nearly two-point satisfaction gap between AI enthusiasts (6.8) and avoiders (5.9). This difference exceeds many traditional factors like industry or experience level, suggesting that comfort with AI technologies is becoming a major influence on job satisfaction.

But the relationship between marketers and AI is more nuanced than simple adoption versus resistance:

• Enthusiastic adopters (25% of respondents) who “love using it” report the highest satisfaction across all metrics and view AI as an enabler rather than a threat
• Pragmatic users (31%) who say “it’s helped me save time” maintain moderate optimism, seeing AI as a practical tool rather than a transformative force
• Still figuring it out (27%) respondents maintain reasonable optimism while navigating the learning curve
• Anxious users (8%) report significantly lower satisfaction and specifically identify AI as a source of stress. As one respondent shared: “I feel that AI is going to take my job. There are already AI subscriptions that can formulate and role out a full scale marketing plan for a small business which is what I have built my career around.”
• Avoiders (9%) show the lowest optimism across all metrics, but for varied reasons – from environmental concerns to skepticism about AI’s value

The comments revealed thoughtful perspectives across the spectrum. As one AI enthusiast shared: “I love AI but I’m lucky to have learnt from the best. Sadly, not everyone has the luxury. I fear AI is going to be a shortcut to creating fuck tons of shitty content that pollutes the Internet.”

This diversity of perspectives suggests that organizations have a significant opportunity to improve overall team satisfaction by creating thoughtful AI learning pathways that help team members develop confidence at their own pace, focusing on practical value rather than technology for its own sake.

Conclusion: How Are Marketers Really Doing?

The Current State of Play

So, how are marketers actually doing? After chatting with 1,070 marketing folks and digging through their responses, we’ve got a pretty clear picture.

Marketers today are living in a world of contrasts – they’re feeling challenged but hopeful, stretched but resilient, uncertain yet forward-looking. As one respondent put it: “That I’m incredibly optimistic but equally exhausted – that’s just Marketing though, right…?”

It’s not all roses, for sure. “Positively challenging” leads our emotional rankings, but it’s closely followed by “uncertain,” “stressful,” and “overwhelming.” The fast pace, constant change, and high expectations are very real. But at the same time, there’s this buzzing excitement about where marketing is heading.

Three big patterns jumped out that seem to be shaping marketers’ experiences:

1. The Optimism Gap
While many aren’t exactly thrilled with their current day-to-day, they’re surprisingly bullish about marketing’s future. This gap between today’s reality and tomorrow’s potential is actually quite encouraging – marketers see beyond present constraints to a profession that’s evolving in exciting ways.

2. The Context Effect
Where and how you work makes a massive difference to how you’re feeling. Mid-sized teams (6-10 folks) hit the sweet spot for satisfaction, while solo marketers and those in huge departments face distinct challenges. Similarly, managers and juniors report the greatest pressure, while owners feel most satisfied – showing that your specific situation shapes your experience tremendously.

3. The AI Divide
Your relationship with AI technologies is increasingly coloring your entire professional outlook. AI enthusiasts report notably higher satisfaction across all metrics (6.8 for current role vs. 5.9 for avoiders) – suggesting that comfort with these tools might be becoming as important as traditional marketing skills.

The Community Imperative

The hunger for meaningful connection was perhaps the most consistent theme in folks’ comments. From peer mentoring to skills development to simply having spaces to voice challenges without judgment, marketers are seeking support from others who understand their unique pressures.

As one respondent shared: “Having a space online or in person to talk to other marketers and share problems/solutions with each other would be so valuable. Not just peer-to-peer but bringing junior and senior roles together.”

This desire for community makes perfect sense given what we’ve found. The three core challenges marketers face – time scarcity, support gaps, and process friction – are systemic issues that can’t be solved alone. Building stronger connections allows for shared solutions, emotional support, and collective wisdom.

For marketing leaders and organizations, our findings suggest several priorities:

1. Rightsize your teams for optimal collaboration – consider the 6-10 person sweet spot, or create pod structures within larger departments
2. Support the middle – managers and directors face the most intense pressures and need additional resources or authority to match their responsibilities
3. Create thoughtful AI learning pathways – help team members develop confidence with AI tools at their own pace, focusing on practical value
4. Streamline approval processes – reduce the significant friction caused by slow sign-offs and unclear feedback channels
5. Build peer support networks – combat isolation, particularly for solo marketers who report feeling lonely and disconnected
6. Protect creative time – implement dedicated space for strategic thinking amid the daily rush of tasks and meetings

Looking Ahead: Reasons to Be Cheerful

Marketing has always been a profession in motion, constantly adapting to technological, social, and economic shifts. What makes this moment particularly interesting is the convergence of multiple transformations simultaneously – AI advancement, economic uncertainty, remote work evolution, and shifting organisational structures.

Yet despite these pressures, markers of resilience shine through our data. The persistent belief in marketing’s future speaks to the enduring value marketers see in their craft. The “positively challenging” nature of the work continues to engage and motivate, even amid difficulty.

This determination to push forward despite obstacles perhaps best captures the spirit of marketers today – facing uncertainty with openness, navigating complexity with creativity, and believing that their best work still lies ahead.

The road forward isn’t straightforward, but with the right support structures, intentional community building, and thoughtful adaptation to emerging tools and trends, marketing’s future remains as bright as our respondents believe it to be.

Is marketing perfect? Nope. Are marketers feeling the squeeze? Absolutely. But the overwhelming sense is that this is a community that’s resilient, adaptable, and genuinely excited about what’s coming next. And that’s something to feel pretty positive about.

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Want to discuss these findings with fellow marketers or share your own experiences? Join the conversation at our next Marketing Meetup event or connect with us online. Together, we can build the supportive marketing community that so many respondents are seeking.