UK marketers lose quarter of week to admin, Optimizely finds

Optimizely has published research showing that 45% of UK marketers spend at least a quarter of their working week on low-value administrative tasks. It also found that 59% of UK shoppers think the quality of marketing content has declined in recent years.

The findings point to workflow problems inside marketing teams, with slow approvals, poor or incomplete data, and disconnected tools cited as major sources of wasted time. The research surveyed 100 UK marketers and 1,000 UK shoppers.

One in seven marketers said low-value admin consumes more than half of their working week. Another 38% identified slow approval processes as the biggest cause of unnecessary work, while 34% pointed to poor data. A third highlighted purposeless meetings, managing too many tools and platforms, and the need to justify budgets and spending.

The operational strain appears to be affecting campaign execution. Six in 10 marketers said they often launch campaigns without the time or data needed to optimise them, suggesting teams are pushing work out before it has been fully refined.

That pressure may also be visible to consumers. Nearly six in 10 shoppers said the quality of the marketing content they see has fallen in recent years, linking internal process issues to brands' public-facing output.

AI spending

Many marketing teams are responding by investing in artificial intelligence tools and training. According to the research, 41% of marketers have invested in AI assistants for marketing over the past 12 months, while a further 38% plan to do so in the coming year.

Businesses are also investing in skills development. Some 42% said they have funded training to improve AI outputs, and 44% said they plan to do so within the next 12 months.

Even so, marketers do not appear to see more standalone software as a complete answer. Better integration between AI and existing marketing technology ranked as the top way to improve efficiency, indicating that respondents want fewer handoffs and less switching between systems.

The results reflect a broader tension in modern marketing departments. Teams are under pressure to produce more content across more channels, but fragmented systems and internal sign-off processes can absorb time that might otherwise go into planning, analysis, and creative work.

For senior marketing leaders, the figures also raise questions about the return on technology spending. If staff still spend large portions of the week on internal administration despite adding tools, the obstacle may lie less in access to software and more in how work is organised across teams and systems.

Tara Corey, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Optimizely, commented on the findings.

"Most marketers didn't get into the profession to spend their days chasing approvals or jumping between platforms," Corey said.

"When admin takes up a quarter of the week, there is simply less time to think about what customers want and produce work they will actually value.

"AI can help, but adding another standalone tool is not automatically going to save anyone time. If it sits on top of the same disconnected systems and slow processes, it can easily become another thing to manage. It needs to be built into the way marketers already work and remove admin from their day, rather than add to it."

The data suggests the issue is not confined to isolated bottlenecks but runs through the day-to-day structure of marketing work. Approvals, reporting, meetings, and platform management can each seem routine on their own, yet together they take up a substantial share of weekly time.

That has implications beyond productivity. If teams have less time to understand audience behaviour, test ideas, and refine campaigns, the result can be weaker content and less effective use of media budgets.

Survey responses suggest marketers recognise that point. Their preference for tighter AI integration over additional standalone products indicates demand for simpler workflows rather than a larger stack of specialist applications.

One figure stands out: 60% of marketers said they often send campaigns to market without enough time or data to optimise them.