The world of digital marketing and digital customer experience is a fast-moving space where AI, product innovation, regulation and fast-moving business priorities all impact the way teams deliver websites. It is always useful to keep up with the latest trends.

Sitecore have recently published an interesting report called Websites 2025: How marketers are adapting to changing digital trends, providing some useful insights into where things are heading, at least from a senior marketing perspective. Note that the report is free to download but registration is required. In our view, it’s definitely worth a look at.

The report is based on a December 2024 survey of around 200 marketing “leaders” (CMOs and director level) based in the UK, US, Canada and Australia, all working for companies with more than 1,000 employees and across a widespread number of industries.

In this post we’re going to explore some takeaways from the report. 

1. Lead generation is still the most important website objective.

Websites have many objectives from increasing brand awareness to driving more efficient and streamlined marketing. But Sitecore’s survey suggests that lead generation, contributing to the broader outcome of driving organic revenue, is still viewed asl the most important aim of a website among senior marketers.

In the report, 47% of marketing executives said their website’s “primary objective” is “lead generation”, the most popular answer compared to brand awareness (14%) and e-commerce sales (20%). Correspondingly when asked how they define success for their website’s impact on revenue generation and operational efficiency, 80% of respondents stated “generate more leads or customer inquiries”” the most popular answer by some way.

2. Personalization still remains an aspiration but is on the radar

For as long as we can remember there has been a gap between the level of personalisation that marketers want to achieve on their website and what has actually been implemented. The reasons for this are multi-fold, including a lack of time, technical barriers and skills gaps.

The latest Sitecore report continues to point towards this perennial theme.  In the survey, 92% of marketers declared personalisation as “vital” for the success of their website, but only 32% felt their CMS supported it adequately.

Meanwhile other responses suggest improving or even implementing personalisation is top of the list of website improvements that marketers would like to see.  When asked which area of their website could most improve to “generate better business outcomes”, 69% of respondents mentioned personalisation, the top answer. When asked which “technology” they planned to incorporate into their website strategy, 78% mentioned personalisation, again the top answer and notably more than generative AI (75%), although of course AI can be used to support personalisation.

3. Budgetary challenges are getting in the way of progress

The current business climate – and wider world we live in – currently has higher levels of uncertainty. This is certainly causing more budgetary prudence and restraint including within digital marketing.

Over three quarters of respondents (76%) reported that their main barrier from investing in more advanced website capabilities was “budget constraints”, with the next most popular answer “complexity of implementation” reported by 49%. It is also reported that 31% of respondents invest 5% or less of their marketing budget on their web presence.

The report also suggests a correlation between those organisations with lower spending plans and those with lower digital maturity. Collectively digital marketers were asked to rate their own digital maturity and here most identified as being on the lower side – 49% said they were either “developing” or “novice” with only 16% reporting they are “expert” or “advanced”. There are multiple reasons for this, but the report also found those reporting less maturity were 196% more likely to report budgetary and ROI challenges compared to more mature equivalents.

4. Use of AI is still embryonic within Content Management Systems and DXPs

By now you’re probably pretty tired of updates about AI and how this is impacting X, Y or Z, so if you’re not up for another observation look away now!

Our experience in the marketplace is that in the real world there is great excitement about the potential for AI but in terms of actual deployment and usage, we’re still very early into the journey. This is certainly reflected in responses to Sitecore’s survey.

Nearly all marketing executives (97%) say that “AI and automation” will be “important” to the success of their website, but at the same time only 18% say their CMS supports it. However currently this doesn’t seem to be a particular cause for concern; only 9% of respondents feel that a lack of “AI and automation” is the biggest limitation with their current website CMS, the lowest answer.

There also seems to be some different in responses from marketing practitioners on the ground compared to executives with the latter 28% “more likely” to view AI as important. The report attributes this differential to CMS limitations, although we feel it could also be due to misgivings about AI’s potential to threaten marketing roles.

5. The “composable DXP” is conspicuous by its absence

In the past two years there has been a fairly relentless marketing message from many Digital Experience Platforms (DXPs) about the advantage of creating a “composable DXP”, essentially a best-of-breed ecosystem made up of independent SaaS-based solutions that talk to each other via APIs. Many leading providers including Sitecore have been on a journey to unbundle their integrated platform to offer more independent solutions available on a SaaS-basis, in addition to the PaaS model already offered.

To be transparent, we believe there is a significant disconnect between the marketing messages and the actual demand we’re seeing for moving in a composable direction. While the composability route can make sense for large, complex digital footprints, the value proposition is less clear for more straightforward needs.

In the report the composable DXP is touched upon in terms of the importance of integrations – for example, 65% of respondents believe that CMS seamless integration with the rest of the tech stack is important. However, the emphasis on composability is dialled down much more than expected. For example, in a question about the key area for website investments in the next three years, composability is not even listed as a choice. While we think composability is still important for DXP providers like Sitecore and a key attribute, it feels a little conspicuous by its absence in this report.

The future of websites

The websites and Content Management Systems (CMSs) space keeps on evolving. Sitecore’s latest report perhaps doesn’t throw up many surprises, but it provides an interesting spotlight on how marketing executives view the future.

If you’d like to discuss anything in the report or the future of your own website, then get in touch!