RD Station's new 2025 Marketing and Sales Panorama revealed a finding that should serve as a warning to any business leader: 71% of companies did not achieve their marketing goals last year, a significant enough number to take marketing off autopilot and put strategy back at the center of the discussion. Behind this statistic lies a structural problem that goes beyond the adoption of tools or the availability of technology.
What is missing in most organizations is an integrated strategy capable of transforming marketing actions into concrete business results. The same report shows that 33% of companies still operate without clear goals, while 34% define “generating demand for sales” as their number one priority. The contrast between intention and practice reveals a worrying disconnect, where companies that want to grow lack a structured plan to get there.
This reality highlights the urgency of repositioning the role of marketing within companies. It can no longer be seen as a support department, limited to creating campaigns or managing channels, but rather as a strategic force directly responsible for generating opportunities and commercial predictability. Marketing must participate in goal setting, process building, and integration with sales operations, ensuring that every action effectively contributes to growth.
The advancement of artificial intelligence is another point that reinforces this need for alignment, as, according to the study, seven out of ten marketing professionals already use AI in some stage of their operations, representing a significant leap in terms of productivity and efficiency. However, without a solid strategic foundation, no technology is capable of generating real impact. AI, when applied without clear objectives, cross-functional integration, and a well-defined business plan, tends to become just another investment disconnected from results.
In many cases, the misalignment between marketing and sales remains the main bottleneck in organizations, as marketing generates leads that are not properly qualified for the sales team, while the sales team lacks access to behavioral and intent data from these potential customers. This lack of connection generates rework, waste of resources, and loss of opportunities, creating a cycle of inefficiency that compromises the performance of the entire operation.
Reversing this scenario requires rethinking the entire business generation journey, uniting strategy, data, and execution under a single purpose. Marketing must be treated as an essential part of the commercial machinery, not as an isolated area. This means planning in an integrated manner, establishing joint goals, working with shared data, leveraging automation and technology strategically, and, most importantly, continuously analyzing the customer journey from attraction to sale closure.
More than a process change, it is a change in mindset. It is recognizing that sustainable growth depends on strategic marketing connected to sales, with a business vision and the ability to generate consistent results. No significant sale happens by chance; it is the direct result of coordinated work between communication, strategy, and execution.
The RD Station study reinforces what the market has already been noticing: companies are at a turning point. Those that continue to operate without clarity, integration, and strategic vision will hardly be able to compete in an environment increasingly driven by data, technology, and results. On the other hand, those that understand that marketing and sales are complementary parts of the same equation, and that only together they build predictability, efficiency, and sustainable growth, will be better positioned to achieve the consistent performance the market demands.
*An expert in developing projects that integrate marketing and strategic innovation to transform brands into highly competitive businesses, Rico Araujo is CEO of PX/Brasil, an agency specialized in strategic marketing, competitive positioning, and business generation, and is an Innovation Advisor.
