Third Quarter 2023

m i ze
p t i t e g y
O t ra
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Yo
 CMOs have entered the second half of 2023 facing a
difficult combination of new and existing challenges.
Externally, persistent talent shortages and monetary
tightening remain in the face of economic uncertainty,
while the hype of generative AI and ongoing disruption
in social and digital advertising platforms pose some
entirely new questions for marketers.
At the same time, a distinct shift in the internal context
of many companies has impacted your budgets and
Letter From
strategies. With 67% of CFOs saying their digital spending
in the last three years has not met enterprise expectations,1
it begs the question of whether the goal
of profitable growth has definitively replaced a more
the Editor
growth-at-all-costs mindset across the C-suite.2 If so,
you need to fully ensure your teams are focusing on their
most commercially productive activities and customer
engagement strategies.
But finding the highest leverageable opportunities to
deliver profitable growth, amid stretched resources and a
seemingly endless set of intriguing campaign and capability
investments, is a difficult task. Luckily, our recent research
suggests a clear path forward: creating what we call
“catalytic customer experiences.” A single such interaction
with a brand that changes customers in some way and
1
2022 Gartner Driving Business Outcomes from Enterprise Digital makes them feel more confident moving forward has the
Spending Survey
2
2022 Gartner Understanding Corporate Growth Strategies Survey power to increase a potential customer’s commitment
3
2022 Gartner Brand Activation Survey to a previously unknown brand by as much as 52%.3
To enable your teams to consistently execute catalytic
marketing, you must become a catalytic leader —
embodying and empowering your teams to demonstrate
three key characteristics: clarity, connections and courage.
This issue of The Chief Marketing Officer is, therefore,
dedicated to exploring this critical transformation of
marketing and its leaders. We have curated a set of articles
around this transformation, as well as insights to embody
three essential qualities:
• How to empower clarity by articulating a limited
set of core objectives and brand traits to align on
a small number of strategically important activities.
• How to cultivate connections by prioritizing
capabilities and management techniques that enable
the coordinated and adaptive use of resources.
• How to strengthen the courage of one’s convictions
by defending choices amid a recognition of constraints,
pushing back on the business and devolving ownership
of noncore tasks to preserve resources for marketing’s
highest impact activities.
We hope these ideas and examples help empower you
and your teams to pursue ever more profitable growth
through catalytic marketing.
Michael Giblin
The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 2
Contents Authors
Hank Barnes Lizzy Foo Kune
Benjamin Bloom Rick LaFond
Greg Carlucci Lacretia Marsh
Sharon Cantor Ceurvorst Emma Mathison

4 Use Catalytic Marketing

32 Create Value Using Jeffrey Cohen Hertha Meyer
Ant Duffin Anja Naski
to Drive Clarity, Connections Integrated Digital and Alex De Fursac Gash Michael Ro
and Courage Human-Led Interactions Michael Giblin Suzanne Schwartz
Carlos Guerrero Sally Witzky

15 41
Iliyana Hadjistoyanova
How CMOs Can Mature CMOs Need to Learn the Art
Design
Marketing’s Strategic Thinking of Saying No Tim Brown
Katelyn Chiedi
Mehar Roy

21 Reframing Multichannel
47 Maverick Research: Writing and Editorial
Karen Ross
Marketing Performance Customer Data’s Disappearing
Measurement Business Case Project Managers
Lauren Abel
Lindsay Kumpf

27 Adapt Marketing Strategies

as Consumer Priorities Shift

The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 3

Use Catalytic Marketing to
Drive Clarity, Connections
and Courage
by Sharon Cantor Ceurvorst, Carlos Guerrero and Lizzy Foo Kune

CMOs are stuck in an unprofitable “cycle of more,” characterized

by more tech investment, bigger remits and unrealistic customer
obsession. The better approach is catalytic marketing, which
sparks productive and lasting changes that drive profitable growth.

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 4

Catalytic Marketing
A single catalytic digital experience doubles the
likelihood of commercially productive behaviors such
as paying a premium or referring other customers to the
brand (see Figure 1). Just one such experience matters
even more than having a large number of memorable
brand interactions and rating all of them as high value.1
But doing this reliably requires you to embrace a catalytic
leadership mindset: cultivating the clarity, connections
and courage required to resist the pressure of a “more is
more” mentality. In this way, catalytic marketing creates
a deep alignment of strategy and execution around
profitable growth initiatives (see Figure 2).

»Figure 1. Likelihood of Commercially Productive

Behaviors
»Figure 2. The Catalytic Marketing Approach
By Whether Customer Had a Catalytic Digital Experience
50% Catalytic Marketing
p 2.1x 44%

Catalytic Experiences Catalytic Leadership

25% 21% Experiences that change A management

customers in some way orientation that allows
and make them feel you to scale your
more confident moving impact and say no to
forward the tyranny of more
0%
Noncatalytic Catalytic
Digital Experience Digital Experience
n = 1,585 B2B and B2C customers
Source: 2022 Gartner Digital Customer Engagement Survey
Note: Bars represent the proportion of customers who scored in the top
quartile of the Commercially Productive Behaviors Index. Catalytic
Digital Interaction represents respondents who scored above
a 4 “Moderately” (out of a 5-point scale) on the Catalytic Digital
Interaction Index. Source: Gartner

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 5

Customer Obsession Is Leading CMOs »Figure 3. Unprofitable Customer-Focused Marketing Activities
Astray
CMOs are under pressure to deliver more value to the
enterprise. In the 2023 Gartner CMO Spend and Strategy
Survey, 75% of CMOs agreed that their marketing Channels: Only Martech: Use of
organization faces pressure to “do more with less” to the most mature martech ​capabilities
deliver profitable growth in 2023.2 digital marketers can has steadily declined
integrate experiences for the past 2
​ years. ​
In the face of this increased budget scrutiny, many CMOs across 9+ channels.​
have doubled down on customer-focused activity as
a protective measure. Customer obsession is a state
of hyperfocus on uncovering, generating, tracking
and responding to customer signals. While customer Personalization: Data: The more
understanding or customer-centricity is a healthy dose Most customers customer data that
of these things, customer obsession goes too far — to don’t want more analytics leaders
unprofitable extremes that customers find intrusive. Many relevant messages collect, the less
Marketing Leader in exchange for benefit ​they see. Customer Obsession: A state
marketing organizations are now making unprofitable,
customer-obsessed investments in four areas: channels, personal data. of hyperfocus on uncovering,
martech, data and personalization (see Figure 3). generating, tracking, and
responding to customer signals.
Brands, for example, have steadily increased tech
deployments over the last few years, with Gartner-
tracked brands increasing tech deployments from
Source: 2022 Gartner Multichannel Marketing Leader Survey; 2021 Gartner Cross-Functional Customer Data Survey; 2020 Gartner Marketing
a median of 58 per brand in 2019, to 68 in 2022.3
Technology Survey; 2022 Gartner Marketing and Communications Technology Survey; 2022 Gartner Consumer Values and Lifestyle Survey

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 6

However, marketing leaders report that they struggle
to make use of all that technology: Overall, martech
utilization dropped from 58% in 2020 to 42% in 2022.4
The cross-functional accountability and operational
complexity involved in running a modern tech stack
uses up time and leads to unproductive collaboration on
digital initiatives. Investments of these kinds are made
with good intention, but do not drive profitability and do
not allow marketers to manage resources more effectively.
The potent impact of catalytic marketing experiences was first observed in researching
high-performing brand activations. The strongest driver of brand commitment
(i.e., connection, loyalty and advocacy) is a catalytic experience (see Figure 4).1
»Figure 4. Impact of Each Driver on Brand Commitment Index
30%
A catalytic brand experience is
emotional, unique and has a 26%
personal impact on audiences’ lives.

Catalytic Marketing Is Not About More

Brand Messaging Ongoing Experiences

15% 14%
As marketers are investing more often, 13%
customers are engaging less often. Instead, 11%
9%
catalytic experiences help marketers do less
to get more.
3%
Catalytic experiences don’t require additional integrated
data, perfect engagement across channels, more 0%
technology or a fully optimized engine for journey Brand Brand Brand Quantity of Brand Quality of Brand Catalytic Brand
orchestration. Instead, they require one meaningful Distinctiveness Familiarity Authenticity Experiences Experiences Experience
opportunity that prompts customers to stop and think, n = 1,740 respondents
Source: 2022 Gartner Brand Activation Survey
change their perspective on something they thought Note: Multiple regression model with controls for audience type, gender, country of residence, employment type, urban/rural residence, social media influence,
they knew well or teach them something entirely new. age, income, political affiliation, focal brand industry category, concern with inflation and supply chain.

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 7

It only takes one catalytic brand
experience to create a lasting impact,
and a single catalytic experience with
an unfamiliar brand dramatically boosts
brand commitment.5
»Figure 5. L’Oréal’s Skin Genius Analysis Tool
AI-generated results help customers self-assess potential
skin care challenges relative to their age and peers.

The same effect is observed for everyday

digital touchpoints, including clicking on
ads, visiting brand websites and using
mobile apps.1 For example, L’Oréal’s Skin
Genius Analysis Tool provides customers
with an AI-powered assessment of their
unique skincare needs, simulating an
in-person beauty advisor (see Figure 5).
Customers can reflect on and explore
skin improvement goals based on an
honest appraisal of their skin’s features
compared to other people their age. The
success of this tool has led to other high-
Easily accessible
impact digital experiences, including
product options aligned
makeup and hair color try-on tools,
to recommended skin
which were among the most popular
care routines help
pages on L’Oréal’s website in 2022.6
customers pursue skin
improvement goals.

Source: Adapted From L’Oréal

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 8

The Three C’s of Catalytic Case in Point
Clorox
Leadership: Clarity, Connections
and Courage
Catalytic marketing experiences don’t happen by Doug Milliken, VP Marketing audience. He describes personalization
accident or on their own. They take thoughtful, Transformation at Clorox, exemplifies as a productive asset, like a factory — one
intentional execution that can be crowded out by clarity of strategic focus. Where other that needs to be optimized and resourced
scattershot activity. Resist the call of the “armor marketers treat personalization as a cross-functionally. And Clorox’s CEO,
of activity” and instead empower teams to create marketing tactic for sending more data- Linda Rendle, reinforces that strategic
fewer, but more meaningful, experiences. driven and narrowly targeted messages, vision on earnings calls. In 2Q23, she said,
Doug intentionally constrains the number “We had our highest ROI marketing in this
The three essential characteristics of catalytic of personal data dimensions that can last period due to the personalization
leadership are: clarity, connections and courage. be used in personalized messaging. efforts that we’ve taken out…. It’s
This forces choices about what is most allowing our money to work harder.”7
Clarity (of Strategy)
meaningful and valuable to the target
Catalytic leaders maintain laser focus on
how their brand creates differentiated value
for their target audiences. They define a
shared vision of precisely how to change
Lesson for CMOs
customer actions and execute by mobilizing
enterprisewide resources. Finally, they plan
ahead for disruption, through scenario Exhibit clarity of focus on how you create differentiated value for your target audiences
planning and other adaptive strategic planning — and what you won’t do as a result — to scale the impact of catalytic marketing.
techniques, so they can avoid distraction and
persevere with well-founded strategic choices.

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 9

 Connections (of Capabilities) Case in Point
HDFC Bank
Catalytic leaders connect data, capabilities and
people in a holistic approach. They worry less about
functional monikers and focus more on the work that
A great example of building catalytic supported by causal AI models: What
needs to get done and the skills required to deliver
connections comes from Kaushik Ghate, would happen if customers never saw
high-performing outputs. They also prioritize building
the head of marketing analytics at HDFC, a particular offer? In addition to driving
capabilities — in some cases, new capabilities — that
an Asia-based bank. Kaushik’s team formerly siloed groups to connect with
support holistic management of data and channels.
confronted an inefficient, siloed customer each other, this approach allows them to
This further breaks down silos to deliver results.
engagement process. In response, they measure the efficiency of every dollar spent.
forced difficult but valuable conversations It also led to lower volume, better targeted
about trade-offs by posing “what-if” and more profitable customer engagement
scenarios using available data sources efforts (see Figure 6, next page).

Lesson for CMOs

Prioritize connections in the teams and capabilities that you build. A catalytic
management orientation ensures that resources are directed to their highest and
best uses for profitable growth, and not all of those resources have to come from
marketing alone.

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 10

»Figure 6. Impact of HDFC Bank’s Causal AI on Business Results
Even as the total number of offers made
has decreased due to better targeting …
Number of Product Offer
Recommendations to Sales
20%
2019 2021
Source: Adapted From HDFC Bank
Table of Contents
… customers are purchasing more, higher … resulting in significantly higher profits
The insights from the data
value products … for the bank
science team have enabled
me to make the right pitch to
Product Purchases Profits From Products Sold
the client. I’m now able to get
140% double the converts I used to
earlier in the same given time!
Relationship Manager
8% HDFC Bank
2019 2021 2019 2021
The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 11
 Courage (of Convictions) Case in Point
CHEP
The final trait that defines catalytic leaders is courage.
In many ways, this is the foundational trait that makes
everything else possible. Catalytic leaders protect
Take the example of Angela Newton, she courageously coached her team to
their team. Along with this self-imposed constraint
customer insights and marketing leader recognize the people-pleaser tendencies
comes the need to devolve or delegate ownership of
at CHEP, a $4 billion global supply chain in themselves and set appropriate
noncore tasks and investments, letting go of the false
organization. Although many marketers boundaries. This has allowed her team to
belief that personal success and progress always looks
let the urgent crowd out the important, successfully push back on rush requests
like owning more and controlling more decisions.
Angela led a multiyear functional from business partners, protecting their
Ultimately, intentional prioritization yields a greater
transformation to “say no and mean it.” capacity for strategic, customer-centered
sense of purpose and impact for marketing teams.
Angela entrusted her marketing operations work. In a sense, what Angela has done
Progressive CMOs are starting to break free from the lead with detailed process mapping to is catalyze confidence and productive
cycle of more by embracing catalytic marketing and, clarify what exactly is required for typical change on her own team.
in the process, shifting from growing marketing’s marketing projects. At the same time,
scope to growing marketing’s success as an efficient
growth engine for the enterprise.

Lesson for CMOs

Have the courage to push back against the “armor of activity.” Exercise courage as
you build strategic clarity and discipline in the face of change. Exercise courage as
you foster connections among people and capabilities required to get meaningful
work done. And exercise courage in defending your choice to do less to get more.

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 12

 1
2022 Gartner Digital Customer Engagement Survey: This survey was
conducted to explore consumers’ and B2B buyers’ experiences in interacting
with brands using digital channels and their perceptions of the value of their
interactions with brands. The research was conducted online from November
through December 2022 among 1,076 consumers from North America (n =
717), Western Europe (n = 136) and Asia (n = 223) and among 509 B2B buyers
from North America (n = 327), Western Europe (n = 78) and Asia (n = 104).
Consumer respondents were required to have considered a purchase within
the last month, used a brand’s digital information sources, and recalled a
specific digital interaction with a focal brand. B2B buyer respondents were
required to be involved in a significant purchase on behalf of their organization
in the last six months, used a supplier’s digital information sources, and
recalled a specific digital interaction with a focal supplier or department (n
= 205). Forty-seven percent of B2B respondents came from organizations
with $2 billion USD in annual revenue. B2B respondents came from a wide
variety of industries, including technology products (n = 78), financial services
(n = 76), manufacturing and natural resources (n = 71), retail (n = 69), IT and
business services (n = 41), construction (n = 30), healthcare (n = 24), wholesale
(n = 19), transportation (n = 17), consumer products (n = 16), real estate (n =
11), government (n = 10), media (n = 10), pharmaceuticals (n = 10), travel and
hospitality (n = 9), education provider (n = 7), agriculture (n = 3), and other (n = 8).
2
2023 Gartner CMO Spend and Strategy Survey: The purpose of this
survey was to look at top-line marketing budgets and identify how evolving
customer journeys, C-suite pressures and cost challenges impact marketing’s
strategies and spending priorities. The research was conducted online from
March through April 2023 among 410 respondents in North America (n = 205)
and Western/Northern Europe (n = 205). Respondents were required to be
involved in decisions pertaining to setting or influencing marketing strategy and
planning, as well as have involvement in aligning marketing budget/resources
and/or lead cross-functional programs and strategies with marketing. Eighty
percent of the respondents came from organizations with $1 billion or more in
annual revenue. The respondents came from a variety of industries: financial
services (n = 44), tech products (n = 39), manufacturing (n = 55), consumer
products (n = 43), media (n = 41), retail (n = 45), healthcare (n = 34), pharma (n =
38), IT and business services (n = 34), and travel and hospitality (n = 37).
Disclaimer: Results of this survey do not represent global findings or the
market as a whole, but reflect the sentiments of the respondents and
companies surveyed.
Table of Contents
3
Gartner analysis of BuiltWith data, 2019-2022
4
2022 Gartner Marketing and Communications Technology Survey:
The purpose of this survey was to investigate the state of technology acquisition,
adoption and use, including best practices for managing the technology stack,
specific technologies in use, and the degree of their adoption. The research was
conducted online from May through early June 2022 among 422 respondents,
with 228 in North America (U.S. and Canada),159 in Western Europe (U.K., Germany
and France), and 35 in the Nordic region (Denmark, Norway and Sweden).
Respondents were required to be senior decision makers, where the majority of
their daily responsibilities are mostly aligned with either business- or IT-focused
marketing (n = 324) or business- or IT-focused communications (n = 98). Seventy-
eight percent of the respondents came from organizations with $1 billion or more
in annual revenue. The respondents came from a variety of industries: financial
services (n = 57), tech products (n = 37), manufacturing (n = 49), consumer
products (n = 50), media (n = 40), retail (n = 56), healthcare (n = 52), IT and business
services (n = 32), and travel and hospitality (n = 49).
Disclaimer: Results of this survey do not represent global findings or the market as
a whole, but reflect the sentiments of the respondents and companies surveyed.
5
2022 Gartner Brand Activation Survey: This survey was conducted to explore
what drives brand differentiation in the ways that are most valuable to the
enterprise. The survey was conducted online from June through July 2022 among
1,999 respondents, who were from North America (n = 1,510), Asia/Pacific (n = 270),
and Western Europe (n = 219). Respondents were full-time employees (n = 649),
B2B buyers (n = 467), or consumers (n = 883). Fifty-six percent of the employees or
buyers came from organizations that had at least 5,000 employees. Respondents
answered questions about brands from a wide variety of industries, including
healthcare (n = 346), manufacturing and natural resources (n = 311), retail (n = 273),
consumer products (n = 215), financial services (n = 210), technology products (n =
164), travel and hospitality (n = 145), and IT and business services (n = 116).
Disclaimer: Results of this survey do not represent global findings or the market as
a whole, but reflect the sentiments of the respondents and companies surveyed.
6
Gartner analysis of Similarweb data
7
The Clorox Company (CLX) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript, Seeking Alpha.
The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 13
 13 – 14 May 2024 | London, U.K. 3 – 5 June | Denver, CO.
gartner.com/eu/marketing gartner.com/en/marketing

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How CMOs Can
Mature Marketing’s
Strategic Thinking
by Iliyana Hadjistoyanova, Lacretia Marsh and Sally Witzky

CMOs struggle to develop their team’s strategic thinking skills,

hindering marketing’s business impact. Mature your marketing
team’s strategic and critical thinking skills by coaching them
to develop into a strategic powerhouse for the business.

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 15

Strategic Thinking Skills »Figure 1. CMO Influence in Business Strategy Has Grown
Percentage of Respondents
Are Critical to Develop
Level of influence has shrunk Level of influence has remained the same Level of influence has grown
Despite CMOs’ efforts to position marketing
as a strategic partner to the business,
challenges persist. In the 2022 Gartner
Marketing Organization Survey, CMOs Overall Business Strategy 7% 16% 78%
report that strategic thinking is the most
difficult skill to develop on their teams.1
An average of 72% of CMOs
Digital Transformation 7%
believe they have more
21% 72%
Strategic thinking skills are any influence than their peers.
skills that enable one to use critical
thinking to solve complex problems
and plan for the future. These Yet, 69% of CMOs said that
Business Growth and
6% 25% 69% strategic thinking
skills are essential to accomplish Innovation
was the most difficult skill
business objectives, overcome
to develop in their teams.
obstacles and address challenges.2
Emerging Market/
8% 24% 67%
Product Development
This gap is problematic because 72% of
CMOs feel their influence is increasing
in key business growth areas, requiring
strong strategic and critical thinking skills 0% 50% 100%
(see Figure 1).1 If a CMO’s growing personal n = 193-199 senior-most marketing leaders, excludes don’t knows
influence isn’t matched by the team’s Source: 2022 Gartner Marketing and Communications Organization Survey
Q. How has your level of enterprisewide influence as the senior-most person leading Marketing] changed in the last 12 months in each of these key business areas?
ability to think strategically, that spotlight Q. Which of these skills have been most difficult to develop over the past 12 months?
on the CMO could quickly move to others. Note: Percentages might not add to 100% due to rounding

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 16

How Can CMOs Mature Their Team’s Strategic Thinking?
Quickly mature the strategic thinking skills of your marketing team members by using a coaching approach (see Figure 2).

»Figure 2. 7 Steps to Up Level Strategic Thinking Skills

Improve Marketing Teams’ Skills to Increase Business Impact by Creating Value

Inspiration Development Application

Explain Think Through Connect Dots, Determine Winnow and Write Conduct
Why Ambiguity See Patterns What’s Missing Synthesize Action Steps Practice

• Influence • Contrast • Mirror • Debate • Reduce • Clarify • Prioritize

• Consult • Recognize • Systematize • Analyze • Compose • Measure • Illustrate
• Create • Delve • Strengthen • Amplify • Advise • Restate • Improve
Source: Gartner

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 17

 Coaching 1: Convey the Importance
of Strategic Thinking Skills
Strategic thinking is critical to the success of
the business and marketing team, as well as
the professional development of individual
contributors. Clarify the importance of
strengthening this skill set to your team.
It’s crucial that the marketing team demonstrate
strategic thinking to be recognized as:
• An influential entity. In other words,
marketing not only earns that enviable “seat
at the table,” but leads the business forward
in digital transformations, business growth
and marketing-led innovation.
• A consultative, strategic business partner
rather than a shared marketing service.
• A creator of business value, rather than
simply a generator of campaign ROI —
which is table stakes for savvy marketers.
Table of Contents
Coaching 2: Think Through Ambiguity
Marketers may struggle with ambiguity when strategic planning becomes
less linear. However, working with and through ambiguity allows teams to
adapt to unpredictable customer behaviors, changing macroenvironments
and the challenges of cross-functional collaboration.
Coach marketing team members to:
• Contrast the disparate parts of a situation. To avoid feeling
overwhelmed, evaluate tasks individually. Then, decide whether these
tasks are independent (less collaboration required) or connected
efforts that align to larger goals (more collaboration required).
• Recognize biases that affect decision making or cause wrong
assumptions or judgments. Marketers can easily become trapped
by expedience, experience or safety biases when reaching decisions.
Recognize when to slow the decision process — even if for a day —
to provide and weigh options.
• Delve into a microunderstanding of the context to understand the
details. What are differences and similarities? What are the problems that
customers are experiencing in their environment? Deeply observe your
customer and ask questions to understand them at an emotional level.
The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 18
Coaching 3: Learn to Connect Dots and See Patterns
Successful CMOs help marketing teams see the
bigger picture. Teach them how to connect seemingly
disparate initiatives, data points or circumstances.
To teach your marketing team this important aspect
of strategic thinking, use these three methods:
• Draw parallels to analogous situations. Does a
situation, problem or series of data points seem
familiar to a previous experience? Are multiple studies
all pointing to the same finding that could be the basis
for a point-of-view (POV) or a recommendation?
• Systematize to make sense of a complex situation.
“Systems thinking is used to improve the capability
of identifying and understanding systems, predicting
their behaviors and devising modifications to them in
order to produce desired effects.”3
• Strengthen viewpoints, allowing the team to put
together the larger picture. Train your team to think
broadly about how a challenge or insight relates to others.
Is there a larger problem that could be solved? Could
your efforts in solving this problem provide a benefit
for the larger organization or a wider customer base?
Table of Contents
Coaching 4: Look for What’s Missing
Marketers spend a lot of time reviewing and evaluating
proposals, presentations, campaigns and more. A good
practice is to analyze each with a “what’s missing” mindset,
to proactively prevent missing elements essential to the
content’s success.
There are three ways to ensure something doesn’t
get missed in this aspect of strategic thinking:
• Debate the pros, cons, benefits and drawbacks.
Add peer review to the approval process, ensuring
that at least one person not close to the work is a
thought partner. Your team can learn to voice how
the work can be improved, versioned or tested.
• Analyze more fully. If you’ve been asked to approve
a deliverable, take the time to analyze it. Review the
content to consider what’s missing or what single
element could be added to improve it.
• Amplify what you see and scale marketing’s effort by
creating something new. Marketers often review work
that’s needlessly tactical or one-off. Can it be changed for
use with other mediums or audiences (internal or external),
or systematized for scale across the business or use case?
Coaching 5: Winnow and Synthesize
Teach the marketing team to pare down, simplify and
synthesize. These abilities are critical for marketers to
distill findings to the most meaningful and form an opinion.
Train your marketing team to have the discipline to:
• Reduce to simplify, synchronize and synthesize.
Remove elements that are less meaningful, usable or
relevant than other points. Can the project be simplified
to deliver it on time? Can deliverables for a big initiative
be broken up into waves? Train your team to think like a
creative brief: what’s the most important take-away the
audience must remember?
• Compose the fact-based elements, observations and
lessons into a POV and story. Marketers must be able
to quickly assess and form an opinion with a rationale.
They must make logical sense out of data and compose
a story aligned to business goals.
• Advise the business to make a change based on solid
recommendations. If marketing expects to deliver on
the influence it’s earned for business strategy, then
marketers must be able to make arguments, defend
positions and drive change. This requires coaching
on what constitutes a solid recommendation.
The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 19
Coaching 6: Develop Action Steps
Marketers must learn to write a one-page roadmap with
defined action steps and suggested time frames. This
plan will help internal stakeholders move forward with
marketing’s strategic recommendations.
Direct your marketing team members to:
• Clarify specific actions steps and write them in a
logical 1, 2, 3 format. If needed, separate the action
steps by ownership designation. Specify how the group
will collaborate to solve the problem.
• Measure actions against objectives and goals for
the proposed initiative or change leadership effort.
How will the team measure actions and demonstrate
progress? Are there other business goals and metrics to
which this effort aligns?
• Restate the end goal to ensure buy-in for the action
steps. Illustrate the desired state and end goal to
anchor people to the effort. If it is a worthwhile effort,
marketing’s colleagues in sales, product or other areas of
the business will buy in and help champion the initiative.
Table of Contents
Coaching 7: Reserve Time to Practice Strategic Thinking
Marketing may initially struggle to improve its strategic
thinking skills, but discipline and repetition will aid in
strengthening this skill set.
To help your team practice strategic thinking:
• Prioritize time for practice in low-risk environments.
Assign exercises such as asking probing questions of peers,
working in small groups to whiteboard and co-create a
strategic framework or drafting a one-page strategic plan.
• Illustrate and demonstrate how your team can look
for and capitalize on opportunities in which thinking
strategically about a business challenge would be beneficial
and why. Use an example or case study to explain how
you might approach solving a business problem.
• Improve your own strategic thinking skills, and help
people — in both group and individual one-to-one
settings — to continuously develop their strategic
thinking competency.
1
2022 Gartner Marketing and Communications Organization Survey.
The purpose of this survey was to explore both the marketing and
communications teams’ function design and its relation to other functions
in an organization and to its external partners. The research was conducted
online from November through December 2021 among 385 respondents,
with 212 in North America (U.S. and Canada) and 173 in Western Europe (U.K.,
Germany and France). Respondents were required to be senior decision
makers, where the majority of their daily responsibilities are mostly aligned
with either marketing (n = 203) or communications (n = 182). Seventy-eight
percent of the respondents came from organizations with $1 billion or more
in annual revenue. The respondents came from a variety of industries:
financial services (n = 44), tech products (n = 30), manufacturing (n = 33),
consumer products (n = 56), media (n = 37), retail (n = 49), healthcare (n
= 40), IT and business services (n = 61), travel and hospitality (n = 35), and
wholesale (n = 36).
Disclaimer: Results of this survey do not represent global findings or the
market as a whole, but reflect the sentiments of the respondents and
companies surveyed.
2
4 Ways to Develop Your Strategic Thinking Skills, Harvard Business School.
3
A Definition of Systems Thinking: A Systems Approach, ScienceDirect.
The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 20
Reframing Multichannel
Marketing Performance
Measurement
by Greg Carlucci, Ant Duffin, Alex De Fursac Gash and Suzanne Schwartz

The 2023 Gartner Multichannel Marketing Survey reveals that

performance measurement is a difficult exercise for most CMOs.
Deeper analysis suggests that a less siloed approach, supported
by three or four metric types, can help better assess multichannel
marketing’s impact.

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 21

Data Insights »Figure 1. Organizations Struggle to Identify Metrics That Demonstrate Multichannel Marketing’s Effectiveness
Percentage of Respondents
Multichannel marketing’s rapid evolution has proved to
Strongly Disagree Somewhat Disagree Neither Agree nor Disagree Somewhat Agree Strongly Agree
be both a source of excitement and headache for CMOs:
• Excitement because it has provided new opportunities
to reach and engage customers through more channels 3%
and new content formats.
We struggle to identify a
• Headache because measuring the impact of these — common set of metrics
whether in terms of the user experience and commercial to successfully measure 8% 10% 50% 30%
returns or ROI — is tough and getting tougher. multichannel marketing
effectiveness
Emerging channels and evolving customer behaviors
combine with older and more persistent challenging
questions such as: How do we select the most relevant 80%
metric types? How many metrics should we use? How 3%
do we connect the dots between all our multichannel
marketing activities and business performance? We struggle to identify a
common set of methods
The majority of organizations struggle with multichannel to successfully attribute 7% 10% 49% 31%
performance measurement. Eighty percent of all multichannel marketing
surveyed participants say they struggle to identify a effectiveness
common set of metrics and methods to measure and
attribute multichannel marketing’s effectiveness (see
Figure 1).1 Two reasons were cited for this struggle:
0% 50% 100%
1. Difficulty managing internal consensus
n = 397 multichannel marketing leaders
2. Aligning KPIs with business outcomes Q. Please rate your agreement with the following statements.
Source: 2023 Gartner Multichannel Marketing Survey
Note: Percentages may not total 100 due to rounding.

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 22

To make better sense of multichannel marketing’s
effectiveness and more confidently communicate
its impact on marketing channels and content
performance, factor in the following insights from
the 2023 Gartner Multichannel Marketing Survey:
• Organizations currently apply one of two broad
approaches to meet these challenges:
–  Siloed channel strategy: Where channel
management, measurement and route-to-market
are siloed, goals are set individually by channel,
and content is focused on maximizing customer
engagement at an individual channel level.
–  Holistic channel strategy: Where there are
established customer-centric cross-functional
approaches, customer journeys are orchestrated
to span multiple channels based on customer
needs, and marketing effectiveness is measured
holistically across channels.
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• Organizations applying a holistic approach to
multichannel performance measurement struggle
significantly less. Eighty-six percent of organizations
using a more siloed approach to performance
measurement (i.e., that measure individual channel
effectiveness) say they struggle to identify a common
set of metrics to successfully measure multichannel
marketing effectiveness. Compare this to 67% of
organizations using a more holistic approach (i.e.,
organizations that measure channel effectiveness
holistically across all channels).1 This finding is consistent
with the broader survey analysis that reveals how
organizations are adopting either a more siloed or a more
holistic strategic approach to multichannel marketing
as a whole. The survey also reveals a sharp contrast in
performance between the two.
• Organizations tend to prioritize transactional and
competitive metric types. The two most widely used
types of metrics are transactional (including individual
KPIs such as sales, revenue and conversion rates) and
competitive (including market share, voice share and
wallet share). The other types of metrics frequently
used are (in order of most to least used):
–  Engagement/return on engagement metrics
(e.g., social interactions, email open rates and
click throughs)
–  Perceptual metrics (e.g., customer satisfaction
score, customer effort score, Net Promoter Score)
–  Pipeline metrics (e.g., lead quality, time to close,
cost per lead and win rate)
–  Relationship metrics (e.g., customer lifetime value;
LTV:CAC ratio)
–  Awareness metrics (e.g., aided awareness, unaided
awareness and earned reach)
The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 23
• Less is more when it comes to metric types that measure »Figure 2. The Sweet Spot: 3 to 4 Metric Types
multichannel marketing impact. Organizations that use Percent Exceeding 2021 Marketing Performance Targets
only three to four metric types, as opposed to five or
more, are more likely to report exceeding their marketing 70%
performance objectives (see Figure 2). Limiting the 61%
number of metric types used helps marketing’s holistic
understanding and assessment of what multichannel 49%
marketing can do to meet customer needs and ultimately
41%
satisfy business outcomes. Fewer metric types also
help teams better communicate marketing’s impact
35%
internally — especially with stakeholders seated outside
of marketing.

What You Need to Do

Analysis of the 2023 Gartner Multichannel Marketing
Survey reveals a fundamental insight: A more holistic
approach supported by a measurement strategy focused
on just three to four metric types will help organizations
make better sense of multichannel’s impact.
0%
0-2 Types Utilized 3-4 Types Utilized 5 or More Types Utilized
n = 397 multichannel marketing leaders, bases vary by segement
Q1. Which of the following metrics does your organization currently use to measure the effectiveness of its multichannel marketing execution efforts and/or
determine budget decisions?
Q2. How did your marketing plan perform last year against its target for each of the following business outcomes?
Source: 2023 Gartner Multichannel Marketing Survey
Note: Y-axis: percentages based on mean of performance ratings of 2021 marketing plan (4 areas; e.g., YoY revenue growth). X-axis: Groups based on count of the
reported number of metrics currently used to measure the effectiveness of multichannel marketing execution efforts and/or determine budget decisions.

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 24

Take the following steps to make the shift to holistic
measurement:
• Simplify your approach to identifying the most relevant
multichannel KPIs that clearly connect to business
outcomes. Applying a return on objectives approach
to performance measurement is a quick but effective
method of identifying metrics that clearly connect to
broader business goals.
• Limit your mix of metric types. Strictly limit the use of
1
metric types to a maximum of four so that marketing
teams can take action from the data. Although
transactional metrics are necessary to demonstrate
performance, other metrics types are needed to
provide a more holistic view of marketing’s impact.
• Plan to build consensus on metrics incrementally
by starting with other functions directly involved in
multichannel marketing and moving quickly to include
finance for the attribution to revenue. Consensus-
building takes time, collaboration and socialization.
Use a “think big, start small and learn fast” approach
by engaging only one or two additional groups at each
step, and adjusting your approach to engagement and
Table of Contents
communication throughout the process. In some cases it
will be more useful to solicit input (i.e., start by asking what
the stakeholder thinks is important; don’t start by showing
the list of recommended metrics). In other cases it will be
more successful by asking for feedback after explaining the
recommendations and approach. Expect this process to
occur over months, not weeks, in most organizations.
2023 Gartner Multichannel Marketing Survey. This survey was conducted
to determine best practices for maximizing multichannel marketing
investments in response to evolving customer journeys in a fluid marketing
environment. It was conducted online from November through December
2022. In total, 397 respondents were surveyed in their native languages
across North America (n = 201), Western Europe (n = 161) and the Nordics
(n = 35). Qualifying organizations reported enterprisewide annual revenue
for fiscal-year 2021 of at least $100 million, with 83% of the respondents
coming from organizations with $1 billion or more in annual revenue. The
respondents came from a variety of industries: financial services (n = 61),
manufacturing (n = 58), consumer products (n = 46), retail (n = 45), travel
and hospitality (n = 45), healthcare (n = 44), pharmaceuticals (n = 35), media
(n = 33), and IT and business services (n = 30).All respondents were senior
leaders who manage multiple marketing channels or were responsible for the
execution of their organizations’ multichannel marketing strategies. Eighty-five
percent of respondents were aligned to the marketing function, 9% to brand
management, and 7% to sales or other business units.
Disclaimer: The results of this survey do not represent global findings or
the market as a whole, but reflect the sentiments of the respondents and
companies surveyed.
The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 25
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By the Numbers:

Adapt Marketing Strategies

as Consumer Priorities Shift
by Emma Mathison and Hertha Meyer

Gartner’s 2023 Consumer Omnibus Survey reveals impressions of marketing data

collection and advertising strategies, the most important factors in purchase
decisions and opinions of brands. CMOs can use this research to prioritize
resources and strategies to align with consumers’ attitudes and sentiment.

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 27

Focus Data Collection Efforts Where »Figure 1. Level of Comfort With Information Tracked by Advertisers
Consumers Are More Comfortable Comfortable Uncomfortable

Although consumers are comfortable sharing some Product History 65% 35%
personal data with advertisers, gathering too much
information is costly and unnecessary. Generally, Demographic Information 58% 42%
consumers are comfortable with the notion of sharing
information about their product history (65%), basic Online Media Consumption Histories 52% 48%
demographic information (58%) and online media
Personal Intersts/Hobbies 45% 55%
consumption histories (52%) (see Figure 1). However,
their discomfort in sharing more personal information, Milestones or Life Event 44% 56%
like browsing and search histories, household data and
social media connections is more inviolable.1 Determine Search History 42% 58%
whether additional data collection is needed to enhance
the consumer experience or refine product development Browsing History 41% 59%
approaches. If it is not, reconsider gathering information
that customers may feel is obtrusive because that may Details About Your Household 37% 63%
negatively impact long-term brand reputation and trust.
Social Network or Connections 34% 66%

Physical Location Over Time 30% 70%

0% 50% 100%

n = 2,025 U.S. consumers age 18+

Q. Advertisers can target and personalize ads you see based on a range of scenarios and data sources. Do you feel comfortable with advertisers tracking each of
the following?
Source: 2023 Gartner Consumer Omnibus Survey Q2

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 28

Reconsider Ad Spend on Intrusive »Figure 2. Ad Types That Cause Negative Perceptions of Brand
Ad Types Pop-Up Ads That Appear Suddenly 51%
Consumers are more likely to object to ads that don’t give Unskippable Ads in a Featured Video Content 45%
them the option to opt-out or view passively. Ads that are Video Ads That Start Playing Automatically 35%
most problematic are pop-up ads (51%) and unskippable
Display Ads That Must Be Closed First 33%
ads (45%), though some consumers also object to online
advertising that requires them to take action before Direct Text Messages Ads Sent by Brands 33%
accessing the content they really want or need (see Ads That Appear Next to Search Results 20%
Figure 2).1 These interactions are viewed negatively,
Display Ads Around the Content You Are Viewing 20%
subjecting the brand to adverse reactions that are often
more memorable than favorable ones. Focus efforts on Retargeted Ads 19%
sponsored content that stands out and conveys positive Audio Ads in Podcasts/Streaming Services 19%
associations with the brand without intrusive tactics. Skippable Ads in Featured Video Content 19%
Promotional Emails From Brands 19%
None of the Above 12%
Sponsored Content From Social Media Influencers 12%
Sponsored Content on Social Media Feed 11%
Sponsored Content on a News or Publisher Site 9%
0% 30% 60%

n = 2,025 U.S. consumers age 18+

Q. Of the following ad types that you may see on your phone, tablet, computer or laptop, please indicate which, if any, ad types are most likely to make you feel
negatively about the brand being advertised.
Source: 2023 Gartner Consumer Omnibus Survey Q2

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 29

Emphasize Product Quality and Service »Figure 3. New Purchase Deterrents
Factors That Would Stop a Purchase From a New Brand
to Win New Customers
Consumers search for third-party information about a new Negative Customer Ratings and Reviews 51%
brand before purchasing, with negative customer ratings The Company Had Poor Customer Service 50%
and reviews factoring into purchase consideration (51%)
No Return Policy or a Difficult Refund Process 48%
followed by poor customer service reviews (50%). Brand
policies like no-return policy or a difficult refund process The Company Could No Longer Conveniently Get Me the Product 39%
(48%) are making some consumers think twice about Friends/Family Had Negative Experiences With Company or Product 39%
trying a new brand (see Figure 3).1 Consider the entire
brand experience and the customer journey to avoid Being Charged Shipping Costs/Fees 33%
pitfalls that make it difficult for consumers to return to No Product/Service Repair or Replacement Options 29%
the brand or develop loyalty over time.
Negative Info About Company Policies 28%
I Disagree With the Company’s Social Stances 27%
Negative Info About Company’s Environmentalism 23%
A Topic Expert Spoke Negatively About the Company 11%
None of These Would Make Me Stop My Purchase 7%
Other 1%

0% 30% 60%
n = 2,025 U.S. consumers age 18+
Q. When considering a purchase from a new brand, which of the following, if you found out, would make you stop the purchase and not buy from that brand?
(multiple responses allowed)
Source: 2023 Gartner Consumer Omnibus Survey Q2

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 30

Make It Easy for Consumers to Do »Figure 4. Reasons Why Consumers Choose to Make a Purchase From a Retailer’s Website/App
Percentage of Respondents
Business With You
Consumers look for added value from their purchase Free Shipping Options 60%
decisions. Brands that understand factors driving
Fast Delivery Options 56%
consumer choice start with price but also include free
shipping (60%), fast delivery (56%) and other service- My Previous Purchase History With the Website/App 47%
driven factors that can maximize their potential with
these consumers over the long term (see Figure 4).1 An Assortment or Variety of Products to Choose From 46%
Communicate all the benefits consumers receive when
buying their products to differentiate their brand on Good Return Policies 43%
overall value to the customer.
Detailed Product Information 34%

Trustworthy Customer Reviews or Ratings 31%

1
2023 Gartner Consumer Omnibus Survey Q2. The purpose of this
survey was to understand consumer behaviors and sentiment across a wide Easy Product Comparison Features 28%
range of topics and industries. The research was conducted online from 24
March through 18 April 2023 among 2,025 respondents in the United States.
Respondents were required to be at least 18 years old.
Responsive Customer Service 23%
Disclaimer: Results of this survey do not represent global findings or the
market as a whole, but reflect the sentiments of the respondents surveyed. Other 5%

It Was the Only Place I Could Purchase the Product or Service 3%

0% 30% 60%
n = 1,835 U.S. consumers age 18+ that have made a recent online purchase
Q. Why did you choose to make the purchase through (website or app) over other options?
Source: 2023 Gartner Consumer Omnibus Survey Q2

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 31

Create Value Using
Integrated Digital and
Human-Led Interactions
by Hank Barnes, Sharon Cantor Ceurvorst, Jeffrey Cohen and Rick LaFond

Buyers want more digital engagement, but B2B CMOs struggle

to identify the right mix of digital and human assistance in the
modern buying experience. Use this research to learn how
to integrate digital and human interactions that can help you
close high-quality deals.

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 32

Buyers Prefer Digital, But Digital Leads
to Poor Decision Making
Most CMOs initially recognized B2B buyers’ embrace
of digital channels at the beginning of the pandemic.
Gartner’s 2022 B2B Buyer Survey of more than 700
B2B buyers who recently considered an organizational
purchase decision, confirms buyers’ preference for online
buying today. In fact, 68% of participants who completed a
purchase did so through digital commerce (i.e., through a
website, customer portal or application).1 Buyer preference
for digital isn’t limited to the method of transaction; the
vast majority of buyers prefer to digitally self-serve across
their broader purchase process.
Seventy-five percent of B2B buyers say they
prefer a rep-free sales experience.1
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The Paradox of Digital B2B Buying
Unfortunately, digital commerce purchases lead to poor
decision making among buyers. Forty-three percent of
buyers who completed their purchase via a self-service
digital commerce experience (i.e., no rep involvement)
have high purchase regret afterward.1 Self-service digital
commerce buyers are 1.65 times more likely to experience
purchase regret than buyers who completed their
purchase via a traditional, rep-led experience.1
This dynamic creates quite the conundrum: Buyers say
they prefer digital buying, but digital buying is leading
to poor buying outcomes. This data does not suggest
that B2B brands should stop matching buyer demand for
digital engagement. If buyers can’t find the information
they need from your brand online, they will try to consult
your competitors. However, the data does have two
important implications for CMOs:
1. Branded digital experiences have ample room for
improvement to support better buyer decision making.
2. It’s too early to envision a world where organizations
should cut sales reps out of the sales process in the
near- to mid-future.
The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 33
It turns out buyers make their best
purchases when digital and human
channels are combined. B2B buyers are
the least likely to experience purchase
regret if they completed their purchase
via rep-assisted digital commerce (see
Figure 1). A rep-assisted digital commerce
purchase means buyers execute their
transaction online but still engage a
supplier rep during the purchase process.
To support customer acquisition and
account growth objectives, orchestrate
high-value experiences across the buyer
journey that integrate both digital and
human-led interactions. The rest of this
research examines how you can fulfill
this mandate.
Table of Contents
Optimize Digital Experiences by Helping »Figure 1. Digital and Human Integration Drives Effective Buying
Percentage of Buyers Who Report High Purchase Regret by Purchase
Buyers Clarify Value Completion Method
The modern B2B buying journey is fraught with complexity 50%
and uncertainty. B2B buyers must navigate buying
43%
complexity. One major driver of buying complexity is the
multiple customer stakeholders who have input over the
buying decision. The average buying group consists of
five to 11 stakeholders, who represent an average of five
distinct business functions. Seventy-two percent of buyers
26%
agree that members of the buying group had conflicting
25%
goals and interests.1 21%
Adding to the challenge, B2B buyers must navigate
broader organizational and environmental uncertainty.
Ninety-nine percent of B2B purchases are driven by
some sort of organizational change, such as a digital
transformation or a change in operations. In fact, 66% of
buyers say the amount of change taking place within their
0%
organization is overwhelming.1 Self-Service Traditional Rep-Assisted
Digital Rep-Led Digital
Finally, macroeconomic uncertainty is a top concern Commerce Commerce
for B2B buyers, 76% of whom are concerned about
n = 441 B2B buyers who completed a purchase
the possibility of a widespread economic recession.1 Q. How did your company make this purchase?
These macroeconomic forces are likely to bring more Source: 2022 Gartner B2B Buyer Survey
Note: Percentages calculated based on stated level of agreement with a series of questions
organizational change, uncertainty and complexity as associated with purchase regret. Bars represent the proportion of respondents who scored
companies seek to sustain profitability and growth. at least a 6 “Agree” out of a 7 point scale.
The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 34
Two Ways to Help Buyers Clarify Value
Recognize and address these sources of complexity to
drive profitable buying behaviors. Merely gaining buyer
agreement that your brand offers a valuable solution is
insufficient. Instead, brand’s digital experiences must
help buyers contextualize value for the dynamics and
complexities of their unique organization. This can be
accomplished with one of two strategies: value framing
and value affirmation.
Table of Contents
Value Framing: Helping Buyers Improve Company
or Job Performance
Value framing interactions help buyers understand
how to use a solution to improve their job or company
performance. Some of the ways you can offer value
framing interactions include:
• Helping buyers improve job performance (e.g., work
more efficiently, develop new skills)
• Encouraging buyers to pause and reflect on their
organization’s goals
• Offering insights to reframe or refine buyer
understanding of their organizational needs and goals
• Teaching buyers how to integrate a solution into their
organization
It’s important that your brand offers this type of support in
ways that lead back to your solution; otherwise you run the
risk of offering “free consulting.”
Value Affirmation: Helping Buyers Feel More Confident
and in Control of the Purchase
Value affirmation interactions help buyers validate that
a purchase is right for them and feel confident about
the decision. Some ways you can offer value affirmation
interactions include:
• Making buyers feel like your brand really understands
their needs
• Helping buyers advance to the next step in their
purchase process
• Helping buyers quantify the benefits of a product/service
for their organization
• Helping buyers feel confident and in control of the
purchase decision
The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 35
Deploy Value Framing and Value Affirmation Across Your »Figure 2. Deploy Both Value Types for Buying Journey Tasks in Your Site Experience
Digital Experience Integration of Value Framing and Affirming Features in a Digital Commerce Experience

To effectively create and deploy value framing and value Problem Solution Requirements Supplier Solution
affirmation content, a firm understanding is needed of Identification Exploration Building Selection Ownership
the tasks, questions and challenges buyers face across
their broader buying journey. While both types of value Value Article on Peer Video Product Product Video Showing
Framing Top Industry Benchmarking Demo Specifications How to Deploy
can and should be delivered through content distributed
Challenges Data Chart Product
across a range of channels, most CMOs should prioritize
offering both types of support directly on their website
Value Calculator to Product Selection Product Ratings and Prompts for
(see Figure 2). Affirmation Estimate Problem Tool Configuration Reviews Service Based
Costs Visualizer on Usage Data
Embrace Digital and Human Integration
Source: Gartner
to Create a Hybrid Buying Experience
Work to ensure the information your brands offer through
digital channels aligns with the information offered by
their sales and service reps. Buyers are 2.8 times more
likely to complete a high-quality deal when they perceive
high information consistency between a supplier’s website
and that supplier’s representatives.2 However, this level of
alignment is mere table stakes.

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 36

Also, match buyer demand for digital engagement while »Figure 3. Integrating the Digital and Human Experience
enabling sales reps to intervene to help guide and improve Sales Rep Usage of Digital Commerce for Buyer Interactions
buyer decision making. To do this, strive for integrated,
unified engagement that combines digital and human Problem Solution Requirements Supplier Solution
interactions in the form of a hybrid buying experience. Identification Exploration Building Selection Ownership
Explore opportunities to integrate digital content and
Value Article on Peer Video Product Product Video Showing
digital buyer engagement data into seller workflow Framing Top Industry Benchmarking Demo Specifications How to Deploy
(see Figure 3). Challenges Data Chart Product

This approach provides a rep-assisted digital buying

Value Calculator to Product Selection Product Ratings and Prompts for
experience, which is the type of purchase experience that Affirmation Estimate Problem Tool Configuration Reviews Service Based
leads to the least amount of purchase regret. Additionally, Costs Visualizer on Usage Data
it reduces the burden on CMOs to create and maintain
distinct portfolios of customer-facing digital content
and sales enablement content. This content can be used Rep is notified of buyer Rep guides buyer through tool Rep emails
by teams who engage with customers postpurchase. usage of tool; tailors in meeting to help buyer feel buyer video link
Although there are certainly situations where sellers conversation accordingly. confident in product choice. following meeting.
require distinct sales enablement content, digital content
Source: Gartner
that can be used for both buyer self-service and through
a guided seller experience offers dual benefits.

When used to its full powers, a digital commerce

experience isn’t just a tool for buyer self-service.
It is also a tool for sales enablement.

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 37

Enable Humans to Augment Digital Buyer
Engagement
Buyers are 2.3 times more likely to experience value
affirmation (confident and in control of the purchase) from
supplier reps than supplier digital channels.1 Still aim to
offer value affirmation through digital channels, but with
the understanding that there is a unique opportunity to
prioritize sales enablement activities on equipping reps
to deliver value affirmation.
Humans have a distinct advantage over digital channels
when it comes to offering value affirmation. Humans can
execute in-the-moment buyer diagnosis, apply real-time
adaptation to contextualize the delivery of information and
advice, and apply emotional intelligence in ways that can’t
yet be replicated digitally. Enable sellers to deploy value
affirmation through digital customer-facing enablement
tools and actionable customer analytics.
Table of Contents
Use Digital Customer-Facing Tools to Scale Seller Value
Affirmation
Sellers often struggle to help buyers feel confident and
in control of their purchase due to seller limitations in
expertise. Although sellers might be able to communicate
solution details, an added layer of expertise is required to
contextualize those details for individual buyer situations.
Good sales enablement tools can help address this gap.
Interactive customer-facing tools that provide buyers
contextualized guidance based on a limited number of
buyer inputs can address the seller expertise gap through
value affirmation.
For example NxStage Medical, a medical technology
provider, equipped its sellers with an interactive business
value assessment tool for use during sales meetings.
Buyers provide details about their business, and the
tool enables sellers to provide an ROI estimation in the
moment. The tool enables sellers to provide tailored
delivery of complex information. Also, sellers could send
buyers a custom results report after the meeting for
independent consumption.3
The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 38
Not only does this tool reduce the expertise burden
for sellers and offer value affirmation, it helps integrate
the value of digital and humans. When buyers engage
with supplier-provided digital tools in partnership with
a sales rep, they are 1.8 times more likely to complete a
high-quality deal than when they engage with the tool
independently (see Figure 4).
Table of Contents
»Figure 4. Reps Maximize the Value of Digital Tools
Likelihood of Buyers Reporting a High-Quality Deal by How
They Used Supplier-Provided Digital Technologies
1.8x
1x
With Sales Rep Independently
n = 503 B2B buyers who used at least one supplier-
provided digital technology
Q. Which of the following best describes how you used the following
[supplier]-provided digital technologies?
Source: 2022 Gartner B2B Buyer Survey
Note: Bars represent the proportion of respondents who reported a high-
quality deal and are indexed to the proportion of respondents who
used supplier-provided digital tools independently.
1
2021 Gartner B2B Buyer Survey. This survey was administered in November
and December 2021 and includes data from 725 B2B buyers from the
U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, India, Singapore, Germany, and Sweden.
Respondents were required to be employed full-time at an organization with
total revenue of at least $250 million and have participated in a significant B2B
purchase decision. A significant purchase decision was defined as a decision
that required deliberation with at least one other person and the evaluation of
more than one potential supplier or vendor. Respondents were instructed to
answer questions based on their experience with this recent purchase and a
specific supplier they considered. Respondents evaluated the quality of the
purchase decision and provided insights into various stages of their recent
purchase decision.
Disclaimer: Results of this survey do not represent global findings or the
market as a whole, but do reflect the sentiments of the respondents and
companies surveyed.
2
2022 Gartner B2B Buyer Survey. This survey was administered in November
and December 2022 and includes data from 771 B2B buyers from the U.S.,
Canada, the U.K. and Australia. Respondents who qualified for this survey had
to be employed full time at an organization with total revenue of at least $250
million or the equivalent and had participated in a significant B2B purchase
decision. A “significant B2B purchase decision” is defined here as a decision
that required deliberation with at least one other person and the evaluation
of more than one potential supplier or vendor. Respondents were instructed
to answer questions based on their experience with this recent purchase
and with the supplier that was used to complete the purchase. Respondents
evaluated the quality of the purchase decision and provided insights into
various stages of their recent purchase decision.
Disclaimer: Results of this survey do not represent global findings or the
market as a whole, but reflect the sentiments of the respondents and
companies surveyed.
3
NxStage Increases Deal Velocity by 300% with Mediafly ValueStory®,
Mediafly.
The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 39
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CMOs Need to Learn
the Art of Saying No
by Michele Buckley, Sharon Cantor Ceurvorst, Iliyana Hadjistoyanova, Michael Ro and Jay Wilson

As marketing faces increased pressure to deliver growth in an

uncertain economic climate, CMOs must focus their teams on
prioritizing high-value strategic initiatives. However, doing so
requires the ability to say no to internal stakeholders.

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 41

Budgets as a Proportion of Revenue »Figure 1. Marketing Budget Allocations 2016-2023
Mean Percentage of Budget Shown
Are Falling
CMOs and their teams are under increasing pressure to 14%
12.1%
support revenue generation and customer experience 11.3% 11.2% 11.0%
initiatives. Yet, CMOs face the distinct possibility of a
continued budget squeeze as economic uncertainty and 9.5%
10.5%
inflationary pressures continue.1 9.1%

Data from the 2023 Gartner CMO Spend and Strategy 7%

Survey reveals that the promise of a return to pre- 6.4%
COVID-19 budget levels is still out of reach. Average
COVID-19
budgets as a proportion of company revenue have
actually fallen year-over-year from an average of 9.5% of
company revenue in 2022 to 9.1% in 2023 (see Figure 1).1
0%
CMOs Struggle to Sync Budgets With 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
Profitability and Growth Expectations
n = 410 CMOs (2023); 405 (2022); 400 (2021); 342 (2020); 342 (2019); 618 (2018);
Budget pressures are beginning to impact marketing
350 (2017); 375 (2016), excluding “don’t know”
strategies. It’s no surprise that almost three out of four Q. What percentage of your revenue is being allocated to your total marketing expense budget in 2023?
CMOs report being asked to “do more with less” to Source: 2023 Gartner CMO Strategy and Spend Survey
support enterprise profitability and growth.1 More than
two-thirds (71%) of CMOs report that they lack the budget
to fully execute their strategy, while 74% stated they lack
sufficient resources (such as technology or talent).1

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 42

CMOs’ strategic trade-offs are becoming
more difficult. They need to balance
efficient near-term execution with
investments that enable them to build
future-forward capabilities. This goes
beyond standard prioritization. Growth,
yield and return must be foremost in
CMOs’ minds as they constantly scan the
environment and recalibrate marketing’s
capabilities and investments.
The majority of CMOs reported that they’d
reprioritized investments between 2022
and 2023:1
• Resources: Sixty-six percent reported
that they’d made changes to their
investments in marketing’s major
resource areas — agencies, people,
technology and media.
• Channels: More than four out of five
reported they’d reprioritized their
investments in digital channels while
59% reported adjusting offline channels.
Table of Contents
• Programs and operational areas: »Figure 2. Top Reasons for Changes in Marketing’s Investment Priorities in 2023
Seventy percent reported they’d Percentage of Respondents
reprioritized their investments across
marketing’s core programs and Increasing Input Costs Sum of Top 3
operations. That Support Marketing 28% 63% 1st Choice
Campaigns and Operations
When asked what drivers prompted
Reprioritized to Support Innovation
these reprioritizations, while increased 17% 49%
and Transformation Programs
campaign and operation costs did figure
in CMO’s decision making, 49% said they Reprioritized Investment Area(s)
as Business Strategy and 16% 48%
made changes to support innovation
Priorities Have Changed
and transformation and 48% said it was
because business strategy and priorities Reacting to Changing Customer 45%
15%
changed. In essence: CMOs are shifting Behaviors and Journeys
their resources with an eye to recalibrating
marketing investments, against the Declining Effectiveness and/or ROI
12% 42%
Has Prompted Reprioritization
current and future needs of the business
(see Figure 2).1
Reduction in the Total Available
10% 36%
Marketing Budget
0% 35% 70%
n = 394 CMOs citing a change in prioritization of investments
Q. What are the top reasons why your investment priorities changed from 2022 to 2023?
Source: 2023 Gartner CMO Strategy and Spend Survey
The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 43
To master the strategic trade-offs and investment
reprioritizations required in a stricter budget
environment, shift from the unprofitable “cycle of
more,” characterized by more tech investment, bigger
remits and unrealistic customer obsession. The
better approach is catalytic marketing, which sparks
productive and lasting changes that drive profitable
growth. Catalytic marketing requires closely guarding
resources for the highest impact initiatives, and
mastering the art of saying no to lower impact requests.
The Art of Saying No
To create the capacity to focus on more strategic work,
cull low-value or excess tactical work. This requires
saying no to some requests on a regular basis.
But the mechanics of saying no can be challenging,
particularly when marketers are considered a center
of excellence, an in-house agency, a newsroom or a
shared services team and expected to support multiple
stakeholders across the business. For example, for a
shared services team’s internal stakeholder requests
may be considered a commercial imperative that
supersedes all others, even when resources are scarce
or the request lacks business value.
Table of Contents
The Path to “No” — Step by Step
Step 1: Consider the Return on Effort to the Business
The first key variables to consider when evaluating
a request are:
• What business impact will this have relative to other
tasks? Does the request align to strategy goals for
you and your team? If the request has little business
value, decline the request. If there is some value,
and it does not have a negative effect on other
strategic goals, then consider saying yes.
• Is the request relatively easy to perform? Sometimes
it makes sense to be a good corporate citizen, which
is easy to do by honoring easy tasks. Also, if the status
of a marketer’s relationship can be improved with
the requestor with relatively minimum effort, then it
makes sense to do it.
Step 2: Consider the Context of the Request
Different communication tactics will apply based on
the following factors:
• What is the position of the requestor in the
company’s hierarchy? This is particularly important
in large organizations that have many reporting
lines and dotted lines across geographies, business
units and products. Hierarchy matters because
there is a significant difference in the perceived
business impact of the request as well as the risk
to the relationship associated with saying no to a
boss, senior leader, executive or external customer.
• Does the relationship with the requestor need
improvement? Marketers sometimes have the
opportunity to grant requests that they are not
strictly required to fulfill to trigger reciprocity in the
relationship. In these situations, requestors may
either view the marketer’s gesture as a generosity,
which can improve the relationship, or they
may take it for granted, which risks straining the
relationship through repeated or frequent requests.
The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 44
For example CHEP, a $4 billion global supply chain organization, »Figure 3. Empowering the Marketing Team to Say No
realized the need to redirect business partner attention and the Critical Components of CHEP’s Approach
marketing team’s time allocation toward high-value work. CMOs need
to use three tactics to overcome the main challenges that lead the Reveal Hidden Costs and Coach the Team on New
marketing team to take on too much low-value work (see Figure 3). Sensitize Leaders to
Trade-offs Through Detailed Processes and Stakeholder
Misaligned Resources
Process Mapping Management
Employing these three tactics has allowed CHEP’s marketing team
to successfully push back on rush requests from business partners,
protecting its capacity for strategic, customer-centered work. As a
Customer Journey
result, the team now feels properly equipped to manage stakeholder
expectations and prioritize the correct tasks, which leads to increased
productivity and the pursuit of strategic, long-term projects. CHEP
was able to reduce its reliance on external agency partners, bring
more work in-house and set up an in-house agency operating
model. This reduced project cycle time from 10 to four months, while
increasing the marketing team’s skills and knowledge of the business.

Marketing Executive Business Project Marketer Project

Leader Partner Specialist Specialist
1
2023 Gartner CMO Spend and Strategy Survey: The purpose of this survey was to look at top-
line marketing budgets and identify how evolving customer journeys, C-suite pressures and cost
challenges impact marketing’s strategies and spending priorities. The research was conducted
Build executive-level alignment Oversee detailed process Lead culture change within
online from March through April 2023 among 410 respondents in North America (n = 205) and about priorities using a simple mapping of marketing projects, the marketing team through
Western/Northern Europe (n = 205). Respondents were required to be involved in decisions framework that relates business revealing underappreciated peer-to-peer coaching on new
pertaining to setting or influencing marketing strategy and planning, as well as have involvement initiatives to customer needs costs and complexity. processes and stakeholder
in aligning marketing budget/resources and/or lead cross-functional programs and strategies with
marketing. Eighty percent of the respondents came from organizations with $1 billion or more in annual
across the journey. management.
revenue. The respondents came from a variety of industries: financial services (n = 44), tech products
(n = 39), manufacturing (n = 55), consumer products (n = 43), media (n = 41), retail (n = 45), healthcare
(n = 34), pharma (n = 38), IT and business services (n = 34), and travel and hospitality (n = 37). Source: Adapted From CHEP

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Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 45

Strategic Planning
Essentials
An effective marketing strategic plan should provide a clear roadmap
to deliver on your business goals.
At the functional level, it is imperative that a clear, measurable and
communicable marketing strategic plan should be put in place that
goes well with the overall strategy and your marketing goals

Use the Gartner proven one-page marketing strategic planning template to:

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your organizational goals

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stakeholders with an exclusive one-page template

© 2023 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. CM_GBS_2489826
Download Now
Maverick Research:
Customer Data’s
Disappearing Business Case
by Benjamin Bloom and Lizzy Foo Kune

Organizations collectively spend billions to acquire, store, govern, analyze

and activate customer data, but rarely examine the risk that these efforts
may fail to produce profitable results. CMOs must take urgent action before
the economic viability of customer data collection disappears entirely.

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 47

Gartner Maverick* research delivers breakthrough, disruptive and sometimes contradictory ideas that challenge • Organizations incur multiple dimensions of cost
conventional thinking. Formed in our research incubator, it is designed to explore alternative opportunities and in the collection, organization, analysis and coordinated
risks that could influence marketing strategy. deployment of customer data, and 60% of multichannel
marketing leaders believe this will become even more
challenging in the future.5
Following the Conventional Wisdom Ambitious Assumptions Must
• False assumptions of success. Marketers incorrectly
on Customer Data Will Bankrupt You Be Reworked assume that customer data capture and integration
Customer data is hotter than ever. There were more The expectation for success is lofty, with 82% of will bolster the ability to prove both the effectiveness
searches for the term “customer data” in 2022 than ever respondents to the 2023 Gartner Multichannel Marketing of marketing analytics investments and the value of
before.1 The common wisdom is pervasive: Collection of Survey agreeing that their organization prioritizes first-party marketing. But progress on customer data integration
more first-party customer data is essential for enhancing data to create immediate value for customers.3 But just 5% doesn’t help prove the impact of the function.6
the effectiveness of marketing efforts. That wisdom is also of consumers recalled a memorable and valuable digital • Messy data, lack of maturity. One analysis of enterprise
wrong. Gartner’s 2021 Cross-Functional Customer Data interaction with a brand while considering a purchase.4 data strategies found that between 35% and 55% of
Survey found that exhaustive data collection isn’t worth Executing such experiences cohesively depends on all data in the enterprise is simply “dark” — stored but
the effort, with 45% of respondents agreeing that the collecting and activating first-party data, which is inherently unused, driving cost with no benefit.7
more they invest, the less benefit they see.2 complex. Some examples of the complexity are:

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 48

The complexity burden of orchestrating data across »Figure 1. Channels Accelerates the Cost and Complexity Burden
an entire customer journey scales quickly because
the responsiveness and coordination that marketing
and CX teams want requires each channel to:
• Check for a cross-channel identifier, validate consent
and ensure there are no other current sessions.
• Provide insight into prior relationship history attached
to that identifier.
• Prepare the technology, content and orchestration
strategy for customers to interact with at any moment
on their own schedule. Number of Channels 5 Channels 6 Channels 7 Channels 8 Channels

Since teams will not know in advance which channel Connections 20 30 42 56

a customer will choose, the distribution of data across
channels to power journey orchestration becomes Source: Gartner
a more significant burden (see Figure 1). According
to the 2023 Gartner Multichannel Marketing Survey,
respondents use an average of nine marketing channels,
and 31% of respondents report using more than 10.3

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 49

Adding one new channel requires exponentially more
work than prior channels. Eventually, the accelerating
cost burdens overtake the revenue and the business
case breaks (see Figure 2).
Channel Breadth Increases Already High
Costs and Threatens the Business Case
The nonlinear nature of these coordination costs set the
baseline for what needs to be understood and controlled.
In addition, the business case for customer data has four
other challenges:
• Technology cost: As organizations add more channels,
the number of data tools and technology platforms fees
escalate. Despite vendor promises to collect all customer
data,8 one customer data platform (CDP) isn’t enough.
Organizations deployed 2.9 CDP vendors on average in
2022, leading to feature overlap and overspend.9
• Unsuitable business models: Not every industry or
business model will be a fit for the collection and use
of customer data at scale. For example, customers of
CPG brands may be far less likely to participate in these
Table of Contents
kinds of engagements when they can successfully »Your
Figure 2. Coordination Costs Poised to Decimate
P&L
research and purchase the product without giving
their data. Approximately 72% of U.S. consumers
agree that it makes them very nervous to share any
personal information online.10 These findings illustrate
the increasing challenge of collecting data through
customer participation. Moreover, pressing a target
audience to volunteer more data gives them further The Business
reason to reconsider sharing it at all. Case Breaks
• Consent management and/compliance costs: As the
number of channels increases, so too does the burden Incremental
Dollars
Revenue
to manage and coordinate preferences and maintain
compliance.
• Staffing and upskilling costs: Adding new talent to
manage and coordinate channels will be costly, with one
recent survey showing average martech salaries are 22%
Coordination Costs
higher than marketers in general.11 In addition to a lack of
staff, a shortage of the right skills can impede martech
utilization. Marketing leaders face issues justifying
Breadth of Channel Integrations
pulling staff away from operational work even though
Source: Gartner
the immediate cost of upskilling investment may be
outweighed by long-term benefits.
The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 50
Three Paths Forward: Partner, Reduce • Identity resolution (IDR) vendors and third-party truth »Quality
Figure 3. Use External Partnerships to Gain Higher
Data at Scale​
sets: These vendors and service providers can identify
or Innovate
duplicate profiles or enrich attributes, as well as provide Incremental Coordination Projected Case
It’s clear that marketing teams must attack the customer access to prospect audiences that can be used for Revenue Cost Coordination Cost Break

data problem economically or they will be bankrupted by advertising segment creation. Although marketers do not
exponentially rising costs. There are three ways out. gain ownership of the third-party dataset, they are able
to use it for advertising and measurement.
Partner to Increase Efficiency of Data Use
• Data clean room (DCR) technologies: DCRs enable
When marketers gather first-party data, they are matching, analytics and activation of datasets from
responsible for the entire value proposition to the multiple sources (e.g., advertisers and publishers). These
customers and prospects who opt in. The total cost of technologies can reduce costs for marketers because it

Dollars
content, offers and discounts, as well as enabling the is less costly to leverage a partner’s data than to pursue
value proposition through technology and processes, and collect the same rich dataset.
rises before advertisers have the chance to put the
data to use. Instead of being responsible for the entire
value proposition, partner with others in the data
ecosystem to increase high quality data use and data
efficiency (see Figure 3).

Partnering with other parties in the data value chain Breadth of Channel Integrations
can reduce the cost and burden of collecting first- Source: Gartner
party data. These other parties include:

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 51

 Reduce Breadth of Data Collection to Contain
Data Costs
Another alternative to an unwinnable escalation of
customer data management costs is to reduce data
collection and rightsize the engagement model to
be more data efficient. Too often, enterprises fall
victim to a classic “sunk cost” fallacy, leading them
to continue activities that aren’t producing results.
Instead of barreling forward with data collection as a
universal good, reduce the number of data collection
points to rein in your data costs (see Figure 4).
Some examples of how to reduce data collection
and their associated costs include:
Table of Contents
• Contain ID-based tracking costs: As a result of »toFigure 4. Reduce Channels of Data Collection
Contain Data Costs
increasing barriers to cross-device or cross-session
tracking, it is becoming harder to associate early Incremental Coordination Projected Case
visits with conversions later in the journey. Ensure Revenue Cost Coordination Cost Break
that vendors provide tools to audit and manage
consumption of IDs, profiles or events against business
value so that you pay only for what you need to keep.
• Test assumptions: There are often embedded
assumptions that the data collected helps predict
or recommend customer actions that will lead to
acquisition, retention or growth. Challenge these
Dollars
assumptions with your current data and prepare to
reduce scope based on your findings. Leverage your
answer to help purge unneeded data or old data rather
than paying full freight and watching it pile up in your
data platform.
• Align data collection needs (and cost) to what
customers value: When asking customers and
prospects for data, such as to opt-in for an email
Breadth of Channel Integrations
newsletter, use an outside-in view to assess the value
Source: Gartner
the customer will receive, and not the other way around.
The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 52
 Innovate to Bend the Revenue Curve
The third scenario to recover a profitable business
case is to deliver such a strong, innovative experience
to customers that they easily part with their data.
Let’s consider different dimensions of change and
how some of these have recently panned out:
• Changing your relationship with the customer such
as with a subscription service: A pivot to a DTC
model has been popularly perceived as the highest
form of innovation — but it’s not. For example, an
analysis of brands that sell direct and through retail
channels (e.g., wholesale) by the Bank of Montreal
found that “[Despite] widespread belief to the
contrary, the push to DTC from wholesale appears
to hurt, not help, overall company profitability.” 12
• Change the experience so that you provide more
value while collecting the right data: It is natural
to wonder if there are alternatives that win with
the customer and provide the kinds of customer
experiences that attack business problems and
accelerate revenue faster than their cost (see Figure
5). Some examples of innovation with efficiency
scale that offer compelling customer value are:
Table of Contents
–  Course-smoothing innovations reduce friction and »Figure 5. Use Innovation to Bend the Revenue Curve
make experiences easy. B2B customers often struggle
with complex product decisions, which reduces Incremental Coordination Projected Incremental
their comfort in self-service. But, through an intuitive Revenue Cost Revenue
interface, brands can guide customers through even
the most complex product configurations all the way
to check-out with ease.
–  Course-changing innovations rely on driving effective
self-reflection to change the course of customers
and their attitudes, and win their business. A good
example is a priority quiz that forces customers to
Dollars
choose between two attractive goals.The productive
discomfort that results from this exercise helps
customers commit to specific goals, while the output
of the quiz invites further reflection and consultation
with the brand.
Breadth of Channel Integrations
Source: Gartner
The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 53
1
“First-Party Data” search term, U.S. 1/1/2020 — 1/1/2023, Google Trends.
2
2021 Gartner Cross-Functional Customer Data Survey
3
2023 Gartner Multichannel Marketing Survey
4
2022 Gartner Digital Customer Engagement Survey
5
Disruptions Derail Progress in Martech Utilization: 2022 Marketing
Technology Survey Insights
6
2022 Gartner Marketing Data and Analytics Survey
7
Research Connection: Dark Data — Data Security’s Biggest Miss
8
Vendor marketing excerpts collected in 1Q23 from CDP vendor
websites:
• Build a Better Buying Experience With First-Party Data Insights:
First-Party Behavioral Data: Your customers tell you what they want
with every tap, scroll, and click in your app, website, and emails. Lytics.
• Create A Real-Time Customer Experience That Matters. Use the full
customer profile to power every interaction, with speed and intelligence.
ActionIQ.
• Rich Customer Data: Leverage all your customer data for any use case,
data complexity, and volume demand as your brand scales and customer
behaviors evolve. Blueshift.
• The Enterprise-Grade, Modern Customer 360: Processing of massive
data. At-scale data processing, including historical data, digital
interactions, and all other online and offline behavioral data, for a truly
complete view of the customer. Amp360.
• Complete View of the Customer: Truly ‘Omni’ Omni-channel Real-time
customer profiles power rich audiences, which mean journeys can span
native and external channels, whether paid or owned. Twilio.
9
2022 Gartner Marketing and Communications Technology Survey
10
2022 Gartner Consumer Values and Lifestyle Survey
11
Marketing Ops Careers Are Good Today — And Likely to Get Much
Better; Here’s the Latest Data on These Roles, Chiefmartec.com
12
S. Siegal, “DTC’s Not All It’s Cracked Up to Be: Deep Dive Raises
Questions About the DTC vs. Wholesale Debate” analysis published
by Bank of Montreal, 27 September 2021.

Table of Contents The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q23 | 54

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