How to Improve Marketing Technology Adoption

Marketing tools often go unused for reasons that are not primarily about the software. The recurring causes are no clear link between the platform and what the team is trying to improve, training that stopped after launch, a workflow that still allows the old way, poor integration with existing systems, and nobody owning the platform once the implementation project closed. Training is part of the answer, but it is not the whole strategy — most of these are operating problems rather than knowledge problems.

The moment this usually surfaces is a renewal. Somebody asks whether to keep paying for a platform, and nobody can say with confidence whether it is actually being used — or which parts of it are.

What follows is a scramble for evidence. Login reports get pulled. A few people are asked. The answers conflict, because some teams have built their whole process around it and others quietly went back to the shared drive and the email thread months ago.

Nobody made a decision to abandon the software. It just never fully arrived.

 

Adoption is not the same as logging in

Three things get treated as one, and separating them makes the rest of this easier.

Adoption asks whether the platform has become the normal way the relevant work gets done. Utilisation asks how much of the capability that matters to you is actually being used. Value asks whether any of it has improved something — approval turnaround, rework, visibility, compliance evidence.

They come apart in both directions. A team can log in every day and still handle approvals in email, which looks like adoption and is not. Another team might use a narrow set of features and get exactly the outcome the platform was bought for, which looks like underuse and is not a problem.

 

Why marketing tools end up underused

No clear link to how the team is measured

Tools are often bought on features or price without a clear statement of what will change once they are in. If nobody can say what the platform is supposed to improve — approval turnaround, rework, visibility, compliance evidence — then nobody can tell whether it is working, and using it stays optional.

The teams that adopt well can answer one question before rollout: what does this let us do that we cannot do now, and how will we know.

Training that stops after the launch

Most implementations include training. Most training happens once, covers everything, and lands on people who have not yet used the system for real work.

Two weeks later they know the basics and none of the capability that made the platform worth buying. The features that would justify the licence go unexplored, not through resistance but because nobody came back.

Poor integration with existing systems

Tools bought without checking how they connect to what you already run create more work rather than less. If people have to re-enter the same information in two places, they will pick one, and it will usually be the one they already trusted.

The old way still works

This is the one most adoption plans skip. If it remains possible to brief by email, approve in a chat thread or store the final file on a shared drive, some proportion of the team will keep doing exactly that — particularly under deadline pressure, when people revert to whatever is fastest.

Adoption is not only about making the new path attractive. It is about closing the old one.

Turnover takes the knowledge with it

Marketing has high staff movement, and platform knowledge tends to sit with a small number of people. When they leave, the configuration they built stays behind but the reasoning does not. New starters inherit a system nobody can fully explain, and use the fraction they were shown.

Tools chosen in silos

In larger organisations, different teams buy independently for individual projects. The result is several subscriptions to similar products, capability nobody knows they already have, and no consolidated view of anything.

Worth separating the two problems here. Consolidation asks whether you have the right number and combination of tools; adoption asks whether the ones you keep are embedded in daily work. Removing duplicate software will not improve anything if the surviving platform is still optional. We have written separately about how to consolidate marketing project tools.

 

How to improve adoption

 

Start with the workflow, not the software

Map how work actually moves through your team before configuring anything — how requests arrive, who does what, where approvals happen, where things currently stall.

Configure the platform to that, then improve it. Teams that configure to the vendor's default and expect people to adapt get lower adoption than teams that start from their own process, even when the default is objectively better.

Involve the people who will use it

Include the people doing daily work in evaluation and configuration, not only the managers signing the contract. They know where the friction is, and they will spot a workflow that looks sensible in a demo and fails in practice.

It also changes the politics. A team that contributed to the decision is more likely to defend the platform and help improve it. A team that had one imposed on them is more likely to wait for it to fail.

Roll out in stages

Start with one team or one type of work. Let them use it properly, adjust the configuration based on what they find, then extend.

Two things follow. The configuration improves before it reaches everyone. And each new group joins a system that already has people who can help them, rather than everyone learning simultaneously with nobody to ask.

Teach people their part, not everything

Train by role rather than covering the whole platform. A reviewer who approves four assets a month does not need the same session as a project manager who lives in it.

Then run refreshers a month or two in, once people have real questions. That second session is usually where the useful capability gets discovered, and it is the one most implementations skip.

Identify the people who pick it up quickly

Most teams have a few people who are quicker to explore a new system on their own. Give them early access and some time, and they tend to become the person others ask — faster and less formal than routing every question to whoever ran the rollout.

Close the old path

You do not need to ban email or chat. What you need is a clear position on where the official record lives: which system holds the brief, the current status, the approval decision and the final asset. Discussion can happen anywhere. Those four things should only be in one place.

Then be consistent about it, including with senior people — the exceptions are what tell everyone else the rule is optional.

Most organisations avoid this step because it feels heavy-handed. Consistent governance is usually what turns occasional use into an established way of working.

Give it an owner after go-live

Implementation projects end. The platform does not.

Name someone accountable for it once the project closes — configuration changes, new starter onboarding, the relationship with the vendor. Without that, the system slowly drifts out of step with how the team works, and within a year the workarounds are back.

Measure whether the work is going through it

Active user counts are the least useful number available. Someone can log in daily and still approve in email.

What tells you something:

• Proportion of relevant projects created in the platform rather than started elsewhere
• Proportion of briefs submitted through the required process
• Proportion of approval decisions recorded in the platform
• Use by role, not just overall — reviewers and approvers often lag the core team by months
• Use of the specific features the business case rested on
• Approval turnaround and rework, which tell you whether adoption is producing anything

There is no universal adoption rate that proves success. The meaningful target depends on what has to go through the system — if every regulated approval must be documented, the target for approvals recorded in the platform is close to all of them. Feature use only matters for the capabilities relevant to each role.

Review this in the first few months. Low adoption at week six is a conversation; a year of workarounds is a project. And talk to people alongside the data — usage figures show where adoption is low and almost never why.

 

What to do when adoption is already low

If you are reading this about a platform you already own and nobody uses, the first question is why — not whether to replace it.

Work through:

• Which teams and roles use it consistently, and which do not
• Which parts of the workflow still happen in email, chat or spreadsheets
• The specific points where people leave the platform to get something done
• Whether the configuration still matches how the team works, or how it worked two years ago
• Whether anyone can explain what the platform was meant to improve
• Whether anybody currently has authority to change configuration or enforce the process

Talk to the people avoiding it as well as the people using it. Avoidance is usually rational — there is a step that takes longer, a field that does not fit, or a report they cannot get out.

The fix is often a configuration change, a simplified workflow, an integration, role-specific training or clearer ownership rather than a new platform. Replacement is justified when the system genuinely cannot support the process without sustained workarounds — and that is worth establishing before another procurement cycle rather than after.

 

What good adoption looks like

Practically, a platform has landed when:

• Work arrives through the system rather than around it
• People can answer status questions without asking someone
• Approvals happen in the platform, including from senior stakeholders
• New starters are onboarded to it as a matter of course
• The capability beyond the basics is being used
• Nobody maintains a parallel spreadsheet

That last one is the most useful signal. A shadow spreadsheet is usually a sign that the system is not answering a question someone needs answered — worth finding out which question before assuming the person is being difficult.

 

How Simple Admation approaches implementation

Simple Admation implementations follow the pattern above: configuration mapped to how your team works, a pilot team first, role-specific training, and a named owner on your side with clear handover once the platform is live.

Because briefing, project management, proofing and approvals sit in one platform, there are fewer places for work to leak out to — and the audit trail makes it visible when it does.

You can see the staged approach in practice in our a2 Milk Company case study, where a pilot department went first, users were trained only on the parts relevant to them, and platform administration was formally handed over to named people at the end.

Watch a Demo     Book a Demo

 

Frequently asked questions

 

Why do marketing teams not use the software they bought?

Usually for reasons unrelated to the software itself. The tool was bought without a clear statement of what it should improve, so using it stays optional. Training happened once at launch and never returned, leaving people with the basics and none of the capability that justified the purchase. The old way of working remained available, so under deadline pressure people reverted to it. And once the implementation project closed, nobody owned the platform, so it slowly drifted out of step with how the team actually works.

What are the first steps to adopting a new marketing platform?

Map how work moves through your team before configuring anything — how requests arrive, who does what, where approvals happen and where work currently stalls. Configure the platform to that process rather than to the vendor default. Involve the people who will use it daily in that configuration, not only the managers approving the purchase. Then start with one team or one type of work as a pilot, adjust based on what they find, and extend from there rather than switching everyone on at once.

How do you increase adoption of marketing technology?

Train by role rather than covering everything, and run a refresher a month or two in once people have real questions — that second session is where the useful capability tends to get discovered. Give early access to the two or three people who explore new systems naturally, so others have someone to ask. Close the workarounds so briefs and approvals cannot bypass the system, applying that consistently including to senior stakeholders. And name someone accountable for the platform after the implementation project ends.

What is the difference between implementation and adoption?

Implementation is configuring, integrating and launching the platform. Adoption is people consistently using it for the work it was brought in to manage. The two are frequently confused because implementation has a visible end date and adoption does not — a project can finish on time and on budget while the team continues working around the system. Go-live marks the start of adoption rather than the end of the project, which is why platform ownership needs to continue after the implementation team has moved on.

How do you measure whether a marketing platform has been adopted?

Active user counts are the least useful measure, because someone can log in daily and still approve in email. Better indicators are the proportion of relevant projects created in the platform, briefs submitted through the required process and approval decisions recorded in it, broken down by role rather than viewed as a single figure. Pair those with operational measures such as approval turnaround and rework, which show whether adoption is producing anything. There is no universal adoption rate that proves success — the target depends on how much of the work genuinely has to go through the system.