Many marketers are implementing marketing intelligence into efforts to better understand customers.

In fact, roughly three-quarters of US B2C marketing decision-makers said that marketing intelligence is critical to their company's business goals, according to a new study from Forrester Consulting, commissioned by Velocidi. And it's clear why.

Nearly half of respondents who use marketing intelligence experienced improved customer satisfaction, and almost as many saw improved customer loyalty and retention.

According to Forrester Consulting, marketing intelligence is "the processes and systems that can help turn information into actionable marketing decisions."

While a big component of marketing intelligence is to improve the customer experience, many companies also use it for marketing needs. For example, roughly four in 10 respondents said they experienced faster innovation of marketing initiatives, while over a quarter said they expanded capabilities to test new marketing efforts.

But like any technology, marketing intelligence offers both benefits and challenges.

For many US B2C marketing decision-makers, a significant barrier to implementing the technology is a lack of adequate data science tools and applications. Many in the survey also felt there was an absence of experience in translating data into insights and action, as well as a dearth of staff resources.

Poor infrastructure for data collection, and the need for overall technical expertise, were other issues that respondents said they struggled with.