Martech stacks are holding back sales and marketing teams

Sales and marketing alignment has been a “priority” for years. And yet, for most organizations, it’s still more aspiration than reality.

New data from Unbounce’s “The Anatomy of Aligned Go-To-Market Teams” report shows that just 56% of GTM professionals consider their organizations highly aligned — meaning shared goals, shared data and a unified system. Another 36% say they’re only partially aligned, and 8% remain largely siloed.

Even among the “aligned,” maintaining that state requires constant effort. Alignment isn’t something teams achieve and move on from — it’s something they have to actively maintain.

And too often, that effort stalls before it delivers meaningful results.

The biggest problem is tech, not people

If you’re looking for the root cause, start with the stack. More than half of GTM teams (53%) say technology is the biggest barrier to alignment, and only 30% believe their stack actually enables it. That’s a disconnect. Because if your systems don’t work together, your teams won’t either.

Most organizations feel reasonably confident about their tools — 44% describe their stack as balanced and efficient, and 24% say it’s lean and integrated. 

But that confidence doesn’t always hold up in practice. Fragmentation, redundancy and legacy constraints are still common, even in “optimized” environments.

Progress is happening slowly

There’s movement in the right direction. About 77% of GTM teams report some improvement in alignment over the past year. But only one-quarter saw significant gains. Meanwhile, 22% saw no improvement or even a decline.

That lack of progress shows up quickly in day-to-day operations:

• Missed opportunities.
• Delayed or inconsistent lead follow-up.
• Duplicated work.
• confusion around ideal customer profiles.

And ultimately, those internal issues translate into a worse customer experience.

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Where alignment efforts stall

A common mistake is stopping at coordination. Teams can communicate more, share updates and align on goals, but it doesn’t matter if the underlying systems don’t change. That’s where friction lives.

More than half of GTM professionals (53%) point to operational barriers like disconnected tools and workflows as the primary issue. On top of that, 43% cite misaligned goals or incentives, 40% point to cultural issues like communication gaps and lack of trust, and 34% highlight structural challenges.

Sales and marketing generally agree on what’s broken, but marketers tend to feel it more acutely. They’re more likely to point to disjointed tools, inconsistent data and unclear ownership of KPIs as major issues.

That’s partly because marketing relies on longer feedback loops and shared systems to measure performance and plan ahead. When those systems aren’t aligned, visibility breaks down and decision-making gets harder.

So why don’t companies fix the stack?

If tech is the biggest barrier, why not fix it? Because changing it is risky.

Teams worry about disrupting what’s already in place, dealing with complex data migrations or pushing through leadership hesitation. So they tolerate imperfect systems — and try to work around them.

Go here for Unbounce’s “The Anatomy of Aligned Go-To-Market Teams.” (No registration required)