Common Reasons Why Marketing Stalls    

In-the-Trenches-Podcast-Man-discussing-with-clients

Most businesses do not wake up one day and decide to stall their marketing. It usually happens slowly. Campaigns keep running, posts still go out, reports still land in inboxes, yet growth feels flat. The team is busy, but the pipeline is not moving in the way you expected. 

If you have ever looked at a full calendar of marketing activity and wondered why revenue has barely shifted, you are not alone. A lot of what looks like good marketing on the surface is not set up to drive commercial outcomes underneath. 

Reason 1: No Clear Commercial North Star 

One of the most common reasons marketing stalls is the absence of a clear commercial North Star. 

Without a defined business target over the next 12 to 18 months, marketing defaults to generic goals like “increase awareness” or “grow the brand”. Those are fine as supporting ideas, but they do not help you choose between options or say no to distractions. 

Good marketing needs a specific, measurable direction such as: 

  • Increase settled deals in one core segment by 25 percent 
  • Grow recurring revenue to a particular monthly figure 
  • Reduce dependency on one or two major referrers 
  • Lift average deal size above a defined threshold 

Reason 2: Confusing Activity with Impact

In-the-Trenches-Podcast-Russell-Smith-talking-with-a-client

Another big reason marketing stalls is the tendency to treat activity as proof of progress. 

You can see it in language such as: 

  • “We had great engagement on that post” 
  • “The campaign got a lot of clicks” 
  • “Our impressions have doubled since last quarter” 

Marketing stalls when: 

  • Reports are full of surface metrics with no link to revenue, profit or volume 
  • There is no agreed view of what a high quality lead looks like 
  • Sales and marketing use different definitions of success 

Good marketing is about influencing decisions, not simply filling up channels. When impact is ignored, you can spend a lot, look very busy, and still not move the business forward. 

Reason 3: A Fuzzy View of How Buyers Actually Decide 

Marketing also stalls when the business has a hazy or outdated view of how buyers make decisions in the real world. 

If you cannot answer basic questions such as: 

  • How do new customers usually discover you? 
  • What do they do in the days or weeks between discovering and enquiring? 
  • Who else is in the room when the decision is made? 
  • What slows deals down or kills them completely? 

then it is almost impossible to design effective campaigns or content. You are building in the dark. 

Marketing stalls when: 

  • The buyer journey is based on assumptions rather than recent conversations 
  • Messages are written for an imaginary customer rather than the ones you actually serve 
  • The content library does not answer the questions real buyers are asking 

Reason 4: Marketing Is Isolated from the Rest of the Business 

You can also see stalled marketing in businesses where the marketing function operates in a bubble. 

On paper, everyone talks about alignment. In practice: 

  • Sales feel marketing is sending the wrong kind of leads 
  • Marketing sales ignore the content and campaigns they produce 
  • Delivery teams are surprised by what was promised in the marketing 

When these gaps open up, even good marketing struggles to have the impact it should. 

Reason 5: Strategy Whiplash and Shiny Object Chasing 

In fast changing markets, some course correction is healthy. The problem is when every new insight or trend triggers a complete change in direction. 

You might see: 

  • Constant switching between channels based on the latest podcast or article 
  • Brand narratives rewritten every few months 
  • Offers launched and withdrawn before they have time to land 

This strategy whiplash stops marketing from compounding. Each time you reshuffle the deck, you reset the learning curve and slow down momentum. 

Reason 6: Under Resourcing and Over Complication 

In-the-Trenches-Podcast-Russell-Smith-on-Growth-Marketing

Another quiet killer of momentum is a mismatch between ambition and resourcing. 

The plan might look strong on paper, but: 

  • There are not enough people to execute the moving parts 
  • The tech stack is complex, with tools nobody has time to learn properly 
  • Content expectations are unrealistic for the team’s capacity 

The result is a pattern many leaders will recognise. A big strategic push kicks off with fanfare, then slowly fizzles out as BAU demands and delivery pressures take over. 

Reason 7: Weak Measurement and No Clear Owner 

Finally, marketing often stalls because there is no one clearly responsible for outcomes, only inputs. 

You can tell this is happening when: 

  • Success is defined as “campaign launched” rather than “metric moved” 
  • It is unclear who owns the number for pipeline, leads or sales in a given segment 
  • Meetings focus on what was done, not what changed 

Bringing It All Together 

Marketing typically stalls for predictable reasons: no commercial North Star, confusion between activity and impact, weak understanding of the buyer journey, isolation from the rest of the business, constant strategy whiplash, under resourcing and unclear ownership. 

You might also enjoy