Anyone who has researched the marketing tech industry has had the experience of reading a vendor’s website and coming away from the experience more confused than before. Vendors may think they’re increasing the number of customers they appeal to by stringing together nonsensical buzzwords and describing their services in vague terms. However, a poll of marketers indicates that tech vendors aren’t doing themselves any favors by making their products difficult to understand.

In a July 2018 survey of 800 brand and agency marketers worldwide conducted by Warc, agency respondents said that their lack of understanding of available technologies is the biggest impediment to greater investment in marketing tech.

Brand respondents reported that confusion of the technology is the second biggest obstacle preventing them from investing more in marketing tech. Both agency and brand respondents said that budget constraints were also a major roadblock.

To be clear, it’s not as if advertisers are planning to revolt against marketing technology en masse. If anything, marketing tech investment is poised to grow.

Warc estimates that global marketing tech investment will reach about $100 billion in 2018. And in an April 2018 survey of 500 marketing executives in the UK and US by Wipro and Coleman Parkes Research, just 8% of respondents said they plan to decrease their investment in marketing technology next year. By contrast, nearly two-thirds of those polled by Wipro and Coleman Parkes Research said they plan to spend more on marketing technology next year.

Warc's polling indicates that while investment in marketing technology is growing, that growth could accelerate if marketers had more clarity on the technologies being pitched to them.