Nearly nine in ten Singapore marketers admit to running generic campaigns, with every single one citing data problems as the biggest obstacle to personalisation, according to new research from Salesforce.

The findings come from the company’s latest State of Marketing report, a survey of 4,450 marketing professionals worldwide that included 100 respondents in Singapore. It found that 87 per cent of Singapore marketers confess to running generic campaigns, while 100 per cent report hitting barriers to personalisation caused by siloed data, poor data quality and high data volumes.

Data silos, not effort, are the bottleneck

The report frames the issue as a foundations problem rather than a lack of ambition. Some 86 per cent of Singapore marketers said they struggle to respond promptly to customers because they cannot access the context they need — a figure well above the APAC average of 71 per cent.

Access to underlying data remains patchy: only 61 per cent of Singapore marketers have complete access to service data, 58 per cent to sales data and 57 per cent to commerce data. With customer journeys becoming more conversational, the report argues that brands which unify their data will be better placed to personalise at scale. Globally, teams that have satisfactorily unified their data are 42 per cent more likely to respond to customers regularly and 60 per cent more likely to use AI agents to scale their efforts.

“Singapore marketers are under immense pressure to deliver personalised, real-time experiences, but they’re being held back by the very foundation they’re building on. When data is siloed and fragmented, AI tools can’t deliver on their promise. As customer journeys become more conversational, brands that unify their data across the customer journey will be better placed to deliver personalisation at scale, and build stronger customer relationships,” said Nipun Sharma, Vice President, Marketing, India and ASEAN at Salesforce.

AI raises the bar on customer expectations

Marketers are increasingly leaning on AI to close the gap. Three quarters of Singapore respondents said they need more personalised content than they can produce, and 81 per cent are turning to AI for help. The pressure is mounting: 85 per cent observed that AI is raising customer expectations, and 80 per cent said customers now expect two-way conversations.

Yet many are struggling to adapt. Some 77 per cent of Singapore marketers said they cannot keep up with changing customer behaviours — above the APAC average of 69 per cent — and 53 per cent have not worked out how to adjust their strategies to widespread AI use.

Answer Engine Optimisation reshapes discovery

The report also highlights the rise of Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO), as AI-generated summaries increasingly intercept customers before they reach brand websites. In Singapore, 84 per cent of marketers said AI is reshaping their SEO strategy, and 86 per cent have already begun optimising for AI-generated responses on platforms such as ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overview. Globally, high-performing marketers are 2.2 times more likely than underperformers to have optimised for AI search.

The survey was conducted between 8 October and 17 November 2025, drawing 4,450 responses from marketing decision makers across North America, Latin America, Asia-Pacific and Europe.