State of Agile Marketing Report: links, trends & insights

The State of Agile Marketing Report is an annual report published by AgileSherpas that provides a close look into the current state and trends of agile marketing.

It is the definitive report and global benchmark for understanding the role of agile in modern marketing departments.

The report is compiled by AgileSherpas, the leading global agile marketing training and consulting organisation.

Who completes the Agile Marketing Report?

The survey uses a panel in order to guarantee responses from a representative sample of at least 400 people, which is the industry standard for statistical significance. Whilst historically focused on North America the report is now truly worldwide with the 2023 report seeing respondents from North America (31%), Europe (55%) and Latin America (14%).

The sample of respondents is diverse and includes:

A wide range of industries
B2C and B2B companies
Organisation sizes ranging from 100 people, to over 5000 people
Annual revenue from under 1 million to 1 billion or more
Seniorities ranging from Marketing Associate to VP of Marketing and CMO

State of agile marketing report trends

We are including links to all previous copies of the report below, but highlight a couple of key questions that are particularly relevant to growth and agile marketing professionals.

1. Which of the following most accurately describes your marketing team’s process?

This question has been asked since the 1st Annual State of Agile Marketing Report published in 2018. Respondents typically describe their process as traditional, agile, or ad hoc.

Traditional: We plan our work in advance using a lot of detail and try to stick as closely as possible to that plan.
Agile: We use at least some parts of an Agile marketing approach to manage our work, such as daily stand-ups, a backlog, sprints, kanban board, etc. We have plans, but they’re flexible and change often.
Ad Hoc: We don’t make long-term plans. We work on what seems right from day-to-day and don’t have a well-defined process for managing incoming work.

In 2018, just under 37% of marketing teams reported using agile and this dropped slightly the following year to 32% in 2019.

Since then however, we have seen some big increases in agile marketing adoption with 42% in 2020, 51% in 2021, 43% in 2022 and 41% in 2023.

Additionally, the latest (2023) report shows that 51% of those who don’t use Agile plan to begin using it, meaning that in total 71% of all surveyed marketers are either currently using Agile or plan to.

2. What is the current primary method of managing work in your marketing department?

The 2nd Annual State of Agile Marketing Report found that 26% of marketers still use spreadsheets as the primary way of managing work.

This question was revised in the latest 2023 report but again Spreadsheets were the most used tool, followed by Asana, Jira and others.

What we find surprising here is that generic marketing project management tools like Asana, Trello, Jira and spreadsheets provide very little support for agile marketing best practices. The report also found that whilst only 31% of marketers use an agile project management tool to help with the transition to agile, 57% believe it could be helpful.

Where can I download the report?

All editions of the State of Agile Marketing Report can be downloaded from the Agile Sherpas website. The latest edition (6th Edition, 2023) is available to download here.

6th Edition (2023): 750 responses, partnered with Agile Marketing Alliance. Download
5th Edition (2022): 513 responses, partnered with Adobe Workfront, IBM iX. Download
4th Edition (2021): 580 responses, partnered with Forrester Research and Mantis Research. Download
3rd Edition (2020): 637 responses, partnered with Mantis Research, sponsored by Aprimo. Download
2nd Edition (2019): 400 responses, partnered with Mantis Research, sponsored by CoSchedule. Download
1st Edition (2018): 692 responses, sponsored by Kapost. Download

Watch the discussion on the 2023 State of Agile Marketing below.

Watch on Vimeo

Final thoughts

If you are considering an agile marketing or growth marketing approach in your marketing function, the Annual State of Agile Marketing report is an excellent resource.

“More than two-thirds of those who have used Agile project management tools, Agile certification courses, “train the trainer” programs, and consistent practices and processes across teams have found these to be valuable. However, fewer than half of Agile marketers report using these. Leverage the options around you; don’t try to climb without any support.”

6th Annual State of Agile Marketing Report

If you have questions, I’d love to connect over LinkedIn or Twitter.