Too Many Tools, Too Little Time: Why Agencies Need Agile Media Execution Now
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Pathlabs Marketing |
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August 18, 2025 |
In theory, more tools should mean more control for media buyers. In practice? They often mean more chaos.
Today’s media buyers are drowning in disconnected dashboards, endless logins, and martech tools that don’t talk to each other. Campaigns stall. Optimizations lag. Reports take hours, if not days, to turn around.
Welcome to the toolstack trap that is killing performance.
There are over 14,000 martech solutions available on the market. That’s not proof of progress; it’s a sign of oversaturation. If your workflow feels like a browser with dozens of tabs open, you’re not alone, and you’re certainly not operating efficiently.
There’s a better way: Agile Media Execution. In this post, we’ll break down how the right system, not just more tools, helps you move faster, optimize smarter, enhance performance, and finally cut through the clutter.
How Agencies Fall Into The Toolstack Trap
The reason why independent agencies fall into the trap of stacking martech tools on top of one another is simple.
People feel more capable when they have more tools at their disposal. In reality, every new platform adds complexity - more logins, more integrations, more time spent troubleshooting instead of executing.
Accordingly, an agency might add one platform for dashboards, another for attribution, then another for optimization. This continues until they’re spending more time juggling tools than actually using them to grow.
The outcome? More platforms and more operational burden.
It may sound unbelievable, but the data backs it up:
Only 51% of purchased martech tools are being utilized.
40% of martech tools underperform relative to expectations.
Yet, martech tool spending is still rising (from 19% to 22% this year).
You can’t optimize what you can’t operate. And right now, many teams are spending more time managing their toolstack than optimizing performance.
Then, there’s the term that you’ve probably heard mentioned as a feature in every tool and service on the market: AI.
AI is reshaping media execution, and no agency wants to be left behind while their competitors access AI-driven insights and growth. At the same time, there is a race to incorporate AI into every toolstack to capitalize on the immense interest in AI.
That creates a perfect storm of pressure, investment, and complexity.
The result is more AI tools, more pressure, and more investment from agencies, but are they actually creating growth? In most cases, the answer is no.
In fact, tool proliferation leads to diminishing returns, not smarter outcomes.
More Tools. More Problems.
Every extra platform in your toolstack is another point of friction. Logins, data silos, disconnected workflows. It all adds up.
Vendor conversations eat up time that should be spent analyzing, adjusting, and improving performance. Even worse, when tools don’t talk to each other, your data gets fragmented, your reporting slows down, and real-time optimization becomes nearly impossible.
That’s not just inconvenient. It’s a performance killer.
The Bottom Line for Agencies: It’s Time For an Agile Media Solution
When your execution process requires toggling between eight different platforms just to shift a budget or pause a low-performing ad set, “fast” becomes wishful thinking, and “agile” goes out the window. Suddenly, decisions that should take minutes stretch into hours, or don’t happen at all, and in media execution, timing isn’t just important. It’s everything.
Programmatic inefficiencies can cost publishers up to 35% of their ad revenue, but the damage goes deeper than numbers alone. Independent agencies and their teams are defined by their ability to deliver real, measurable results while building genuine relationships with their clients, which sets their services apart from those of their larger competitors.
When an independent agency misses the mark, their numbers suffer, but so do the personal partnerships that only they can create. Agile media execution gives teams the simplicity that a deep toolstack can’t:
Launch faster with fewer delays: Agile media solutions help campaigns go live quickly by removing bottlenecks like long approval cycles and disconnected teams.
Test and scale without risk: Built-in testing frameworks allow teams to experiment confidently and scale what works without slowing execution.
Optimize in real time, not after the fact: Continuous monitoring and adjustments improve performance as results come in, not weeks later.
Simplify everything with one team and one partnership: Pulse by Pathlabs consolidates channels, contacts, and reporting into one streamlined process.
Pulse by Pathlabs: Your Next Agile Media Solution
Pulse by Pathlabs is more than a service-based partnership. It’s a reset button for chaotic media operations. It pulls together media execution across CTV, search, social, retail, video, and display into one single point of entry so your team can stop toggling and start executing.
No juggling.
Just one solution backed by real, reachable media execution experts and not a one-size-fits-all tool.
If your team is stuck swapping platforms, chasing vendors, or waiting in approval purgatory, they’re losing speed, missing opportunities, and likely burning out.
Agencies can’t afford to let inefficiency stall performance. Replace the toolstack chaos with a single solution that creates more momentum, control, and clarity. Plus performance.
