The average marketer’s skill set has changed dramatically in the last decade, as the use of analytics tools becomes an essential aspect of their daily tasks.

That finding comes from Aplitude Inc.’s newly published 2016 State of Analytics Report, which found that the majority of analytics users are no longer data scientists, but rather mid-to-high level managers in enterprise marketing and product development departments. What’s more, these people are taking to analytics tools with abandon too, for the survey of 145 executives and marketing managers found that 86 percent of them believe analytics is an important factor in their business decision making.

Despite this enthusiasm, the costs and complexities of analytics tools are still an issue, particularly the “complicated interfaces” that can cause problems for untrained employees. Even so, some 70 percent of survey respondents said they’re planning to use event-based analytics (events are measurable actions consumers can take in response to seeing ads) in the near future.

As to why analytics tools are so popular with marketers, the biggest reason is that they’re proving themselves to be effective. Just over 73 percent of respondents who have used analytics said they’re able to take those insights and use them to increase customer engagement and retention.

Regarding the type of analytics tools being used, the vast majority of respondents (90 percent) said they only use “out-of-the-box” analytics tools, while just nine percent said they use a combination of in-house and out-of-the-box tools. However, some 60 percent added that they use more than one out-of-the-box product, which suggests marketers still haven’t found a one-size-fits-all metric to best understand their customers.

Of the individual tools, Google Analytics is the most popular among those surveyed.

The full report can be downloaded Aplitude’s website here (sign up required).

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