Full-stack marketers need support at the organizational and technological levels

Full-stack marketer is an increasingly common term for marketing professionals who combine various marketing disciplines into a single skill set. But these Swiss Army knives of modern marketing say the lack of clarity from leadership and frequent task-switching pose significant challenges to meeting goals and producing positive business results.

That’s according to a new report from Semrush, “The Rise of the Full-Stack Marketer: 2025” (registration required), which takes an in-depth look at full-stack marketers. (Semrush is the parent company of MarTech publisher Third Door Media.)

What makes a marketer a full-stack marketer?

The report identifies the key aspects of full-stack marketers as:

• Broad skill sets, blending agility, tech-savviness and strategic insight
• Depth of knowledge allows them to integrate many channels into a coherent, high-performing strategy.
• Versatility and adaptability to move from high-level strategy to hands-on execution without losing sight of what drives growth
• Strategic focus to handle day-to-day operations and execution,

According to the report, full-stack marketers often power small to mid-sized companies and agencies, bringing cohesion and speed to fragmented workflows, but the role continues to evolve. The report predicts an increasing demand for multi-skilled marketers and fewer opportunities for specialized professionals, partly driven by generative AI tools and integrated systems.

Dig deeper: These are the challenges and barriers impacting your martech stack

Challenges facing full-stack marketers

The report found a lack of clarity and direction is a common cause of difficulty for full-stack marketers. That includes challenges such as ambiguous goals, shifting priorities and the absence of a clear vision. 

Full-stack marketers also expressed frustration with leaders who may not fully understand marketing’s role in a business. That can lead to micromanagement, deprioritized marketing efforts and cultures that prioritize quick wins over long-term strategic growth. 

Another top pain point identified by full-stack marketers is frequent task switching. Constantly switching between projects, platforms, and priorities leads to heavy mental loads and inhibits strategic thinking, even when time is protected.

How marketing leaders can support full-stack marketers

By supporting technological and organizational change, marketing leadership can help full-stack marketers reach their potential and deliver better results. 

Technological support for full-stack marketers

From a technology perspective, leadership can help address workload management and reduce task switching. This includes identifying opportunities to work smarter by automating repetitive tasks, refining processes and integrating smarter systems, which can help reclaim time for higher-impact creative and strategic work. 

The report found full-stack marketers struggle with integrating multiple platforms and tools, facing tool overload or feature bloat.

Full-stack marketers also see AI-powered assistants and tools as essential for automating tasks, speeding up ideation and scaling output. However, only 9% of the full-stack marketers surveyed for the report use AI assistants to help manage tasks, which places AI assistants far behind dedicated project management tools (29%), email and calendar reminders (24%) and spreadsheets or documents (22%).

“I think the thing that surprised me the most was how low a percentage of full-stack marketers are using AI assistants,” said Rita Cidre, head of academy at Semrush. “I think AI and any sort of comprehensive platform that minimizes the amount of time you spend switching between one platform or another or that basically helps you scale yourself and your work feels to me to be integral to the success of a full-stack marketer.”

Dig deeper: Marketers have lots of AI but not enough direction

Organization support for full-stack marketers

Organizationally, FSMs want increased strategic clarity and long-term direction. They also desire recognition and support from leadership and more time and space to focus on big-picture strategy and activities that drive long-term growth, including meaningful data analysis, customer research, campaign strategy and creative brainstorming.

“Even within organizations, oftentimes the definition and role of marketing is pretty unclear,” Cidre said. “The boundaries of marketing have started to trickle into product, trickle into revenue, sales, operations. I feel like that lack of definition is why many full-stack marketers feel like there’s a lack of clarity in their role.”

The Semrush report is based on an analysis of 956 LinkedIn profiles identified as full-stack marketers; social listening from Brand24 to track mentions of relevant keywords; a survey of 400 full-stack marketers through Wynter in April 2025; and interviews with marketing experts.