• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, February 21, 2025

Marketing and advertising just might see a “shakeup” that will lead to more efficient and effective operations through technology, but only for those CMOs who have the foresight to make big changes. The shift is not without pain.

The warning points to a much-needed transition for marketing departments, from being a cost center to a command center powered by real-time data-driven decisions like marketing or media mix modeling and performance indicators.

The CMO Council weighed Marketing Performance Indicators (MPIs) to give the industry a new way to track the state of marketing.

Now the organization has rolled out markers for sectors ranging from business, economic, customer, operational tasks, to employment, training, outsourcing, channel, budgetary, media spend, and technology investments. 

CMOs are on the hook to make marketing mix and spend deliver real revenue growth. Some 65% of CMOs said marketing must own and optimize a company’s revenue-generation engine, according to a CMO Council survey.

The inaugural report released this week identifies generative artificial intelligence (GAI) and data use that can be tracked, attributed and measured, as well as moving it to a variety of digital channels and marketing platforms. The idea is to more easily identify brand and performance.

It delves into revenue science, which refers to the practice of using advanced data analytics, artificial intelligence, and behavioral economics principles to systematically analyze, forecast, and design revenue streams to optimize a company's revenue growth by understanding customer behavior and market dynamics.

CMO Council’s report estimates that revenue science platforms will gain traction as chief growth officers examine areas of monetization, retention, conversion, expansion, extension, and yield and price optimization.

Marketing investments and outcomes will become more productive, predictive, accountable and measurable with spend to deliver return on investments (ROIs).

Think of the network as “a massive, mobile, user-connected world -- where billions of buyers share breadcrumbs of personal intelligence and purchase intent daily” to create a branded content and interactions, according to the report.

The CMO Council represents more than 16,000 marketing leaders in 10,000 companies collectively controlling nearly $1 trillion in annual, aggregated marketing spend. 

Unfortunately, the study also identified gaps and holes in marketing organizations that leak revenue. In a CMO Council survey, 86% of CMOs said a lack of resources or capabilities has resulted in missed revenue, growth or customer acquisition opportunities.

The upside is that 57% of CMOs recognize marketing technology investments in GAI are likely to create the most value and ROI, followed by 49% in Customer Data Platform & Insights.

About 80% of highly involved marketers are satisfied with their intent-based marketing, compared with only 17% of less evolved marketers.

Some 37% of CMOs said their campaign performance needs improvement.