Chief Marketing Officer

Expert insight to help CMOs and Marketing Leaders drive growth and bring the future of their organization forward faster

CMOs must establish marketing at the center of the business strategy as the organization looks to differentiate itself

Benchmarking against your peers and competitors is an essential priority for the CMO when developing strategy and budget. But much deeper than budget allocation are strategic priorities, organization alignment and metrics for specialized programs, such as personalization, innovation and customer experience. These drivers of investment are important cross-functionally in indicating the success of marketing and how that sits in the broader enterprise.

CMO strategic imperatives: marketing strategy development, marketing and business innovation acceleration, creating and managing disruption, marketing leadership and organizational effectiveness, and transformation and change management.

Working with Gartner has been a tremendous experience. Being the new CMO of Time Inc., I was trying to bring in new strategies and innovation, along with exploring new revenue channels for the organization. Gartner equipped me with the best practices that other organizations were performing. Although there was a lack of resources in-house, Gartner was always available as a team and helped me make the right decisions in marketing new launches.

Leslie Doty

Former CMO, Time Inc.

How we address your top challenges

Digital transformation, increased competition and changing economic times are triggering major shifts in thinking and practice. We’re here to guide you. We’ll help evolve your leadership by prioritizing strategic initiatives and restructuring your function’s organization design, ensuring you get the most out of your vendors and technologies, and benchmarking your brand’s digital health to support digital transformation.

Strategy and organization

56% of executives surveyed view strategic planning as a waste of time. Often, strategic plans don’t measure up or deliver forecast benefits. Gartner provides you with insights shared by functional leaders as well as lessons learned and best-practice advice to build a successful strategic plan for marketing.

View Strategic Plan

Marketing organization and operations

Marketing teams seeking greater agility and responsiveness struggle to both access the right capabilities and implement effective operational models. In the quest for modernization and evolution, Gartner can assist marketing leaders in providing thorough analyses and actionable tools to establish good team foundations and help place attention on the design of an agile team focused on accountability.

Read Article

Marketing data and analytics

As marketing executives approach budgeting season, it’s crucial to benchmark your spend among your peers and understand changing trends in your industry. The top findings from Gartner’s Annual CMO Spend Survey 2019-2020 can help you prioritize your strategic initiatives across many facets of your role, including organization and operations, martech, paid media spend, and data and analytics.

View Research

Questions about becoming a Gartner client?

New to your role?

To accomplish all that needs to get done in the first 100 days — from aligning with the CEO to talking with customers, assessing your team, establishing your priorities, building key relationships and showing quick wins — CMOs need a plan to set the tone for their tenure.

Blueprint for a CMO’s First 100 Days

Use a 6-phase approach anchored in effective communication to set the conditions for success

Read Article

Kick-Start Your Transition

Practical First Steps for Marketing Cost Optimization

View research

Optimize Your Spend

4 Key Findings in the Annual Gartner CMO Spend Survey 2019-2020

Read Article

Highlights from Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo 2019

Catch up on the top insights and trends that CMOs and marketing leaders were talking about at this year’s Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo™. How are you marketing to Gen Z? Does your marketing strategy prioritize help? How do you build a genius marketing organization? Get the insights from Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo 2019 to understand the top trends that marketers are caring about now.

We went out to San Diego, and the term we always use is that ‘the light seemed to go on’ for us at that point in time.

Jim Pendergast

Senior Vice President, Customer Experience, AARP

Dig deeper with Gartner

Digital IQ Index

Retail Banking U.S. 2019

Learn more
Infographic

Annual CMO Spend Survey 2019-2020 Infographic

View now
Insight Report

Home Care US: Optimizing Your Media Mix

Learn more
Intelligence Report

Localization 2019

Learn more
Insight Report

Food UK: Retailer’s Playbook

Learn more
Research

Marketing Organizational Survey 2019

Read now

Smarter With Gartner

Article

How Marketers Should Organize for Digital Agility

Article

How Marketers Should Organize for Digital Agility

Read now
Article

A CMO's Guide to Winning in the Turns

Article

A CMO's Guide to Winning in the Turns

Read now
Article

4 Key Findings in the Annual Gartner CMO Spend Survey 2019-2020

Article

4 Key Findings in the Annual Gartner CMO Spend Survey 2019-2020

Read now
Article

Blueprint for a CMO’s First 100 Days

Article

Blueprint for a CMO’s First 100 Days

Read now
Article

The Secret to B2B Account Growth

Article

The Secret to B2B Account Growth

Read now
Article

3 Techniques to Maximize Advertising ROI

Article

3 Techniques to Maximize Advertising ROI

Read now

Gartner is a trusted advisor and an objective resource for more than 15,600 organizations in 100+ countries.

Learn more about how we can help you achieve your mission-critical priorities.