Many small-business marketers feel that marketing automation is out of reach.

That's according to new data from small-business marketing platform ActiveCampaign.

In fact, 41% of US small-business marketers surveyed for the December 2017 study felt that way. And that's just one of the reasons some haven't adopted the software.

When respondents who said they weren't using marketing automation were asked why not, a quarter cited a lack of familiarity with marketing automation software, while others just didn't know where to begin.

Overall, a plethora of reasons was mentioned, ranging from a lack of time to intimidation and fear of the software. However, cost was the top reason for avoiding marketing automation, named by one-third of small-business marketers polled.

That mirrors a separate study from GetResponse, in which more than a third of marketers said securing a budget was their top marketing automation obstacle, followed closely by the quality of customer data.