By Anjana Jayasena, Analytics Manager at Semetrical 

Today’s marketing world demands technical savvy like never before. Many of our clients face challenges in mastering key technical elements, such as smoothly implementing consent mode v2 and ensuring data flows seamlessly for actionable insights. With Analytics enquiries on the rise, it’s clear that businesses must prioritise bolstering their skills. It’s not just about staying ahead of the competition; it’s about empowering brands to make confident, data-driven decisions that drive real growth. Here are some of the biggest digital marketing skill gaps this year:

1. Analytics 

According to MarketingWeek*, ‘Data and Analytics’ are the biggest skills gap faced by the marketingindustry in 2024, an issue currently experienced by over one third (36.9%) of brand-side marketers. This presents an increase from last year, where data skills were lacking in 34.4% of marketing teams, showing a widening of the gap.

The inability to effectively gather and analyse data is proving a significant barrier for brands and poses a serious area of concern for businesses. We’ve witnessed these challenges among our clients, increasingly so in the past year, with a much greater number of prospects coming to us with Analytics, specifically GA4 related enquiries. According to our Sales team, analytics issues currently make up the largest proportion of our enquiries!

2. Performance Marketing

Interestingly, one of the most integral elements of Performance Marketing is the ability to analyse data. As such, it’s no surprise that Performance Marketing comes in second place after Data and Analytics.

While you don’t need to be a data wizz, it definitely helps to feel comfortable around large data sets in order to track and analyse the effectiveness of your campaigns and leverage data to deliver highly targeted campaigns too.

3. Content

In 2024, 18.1% of marketing teams* report a skills gap when it comes to ‘Content and Copywriting’ skills. Providing augmented writing assistance and even content generation, generative AI was used by 76% of marketers** for basic content creation and copywriting in 2023, helping in some way to fill content gaps.

While it is debatable whether AI can be classified as a solution to replacing content skills, the general consensus among digital marketers – and Google – is absolutely not.

4. Social media 

Surveys* show that 14.8% of marketing teams lack Social Media skills, which is particularly shocking given that 77%*** of businesses use Social Media as part of their marketing strategy

According to HubSpot****, the biggest challenges faced by marketers in Social Media include creating engaging content that generates leads, reaching their target audience, growing and retaining followers, as well as keeping up with trends and algorithm updates.

5. E-commerce 

It is reported that 12.1%* of marketing teams are suffering from a lack of eCommerce skills, encompassing a variety of areas.

Much like Performance Marketing, eCommerce Marketing is heavily reliant on data skills in order to understand consumer behaviour, improve customer experience, track sales, and optimise strategies. Again, this reiterates just how critical analytical skills are in your marketing teams.

*https://www.marketingweek.com/marketers-data-analysis-skills-gap/

**https://www.emarketer.com/content/5-charts-showing-how-marketers-thinking-about-generative-ai-now-that-hype-has-passed

***https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/social-media-statistics/

****https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/hubspot-blog-social-media-marketing-report

Photo by Elio Santos on Unsplash