The economic outlook for marketing from the latest CMO survey

Marketing doubled down on customer marketing as economic optimism fluctuates; businesses see more value in marketing, as the functions influence and responsibilities grow

“Marketing contracts under economic pressure despite growing value and AI gains.” That’s the title of the 35^th edition of The CMO Survey.

It’s a factual title based on the averages compiled from responses; however, it’s not uniform. Averages can be deceiving, so readers should avoid drawing generalized conclusions – and examine the pockets carefully.

This survey had 308 respondents, and has, historically, done well in obtaining input from senior marketing leaders. About two-thirds of respondents come from the B2B sector. That includes ~40% of respondents who work for B2B product companies and ~26% who work for B2B services companies.

The survey has been conducted since 2008, though the biannual cadence has been reduced to annual since 2025. That’s probably the right move since survey fatigue is a real problem.

It’s headed by Christine Moorman, a professor at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, with support from Deloitte and the American Marketing Association.

I’ve reviewed nearly every survey since its inception and have written about half of them – when something in the data stands out to me. There’s a lot of interesting stuff in this year’s survey, so I’ve highlighted those points along with my own commentary below.

1. Marketing’s economic optimism sours a bit

“Economic optimism among marketers has declined to 56.8 (on a 0–100 scale), its lowest reading since the pandemic,” according to the report. “More than half of marketers (50.7%) report being less optimistic than last quarter – the highest level of pessimism since June 2020 – while those reporting greater optimism have fallen to 22.2%, down from 31.2% one year ago.”

Commentary: As noted in the commentary, this sentiment is not uniform. Real estate and energy verticals are far more optimistic, with scores around 69 – about 13 points above the average. Similarly, other sectors are lower. Mining and construction turned a bit gloomier with a score of 38.

I’ve observed similar ups and downs within the technology sector. For example, VC investment has trended towards more money in fewer deals. AI is hyped to a level that’s reminiscent of 1999, where every startup adds dot-AI to their name the same way companies added dot-com during the internet’s crazy growth stages.

Outside of this survey, economic data is all over the map. War, changing trade policy, inflation, AI and shifting government policies are obfuscating traditional forecasting methods.

Finally, optimism, or the lack of it, is infectious. Marketing, as the public face of a company and an influential internal organization, has to put on a brave face. That’s part of the job.

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2. It’s not tariffs, but the perennial changes to tariffs

This report pins a sizable portion of slipping optimism and more on tariffs:

“Tariffs are also suppressing business investment. Among companies changing investment levels, those lowering investments outnumber those making increases by almost four to one.”

It later quantifies this by showing that about 1 in 5 businesses (~22%) are trimming investment as a result of tariffs.

Commentary: It’s not the tariffs that are hurting business investment; it’s the constant changes to trade policy. The best business case for investment hinges on assumptions, which are inherently risky, even in the best of times.

The fact is, business investment, for most companies, is a multi-year obligation. They aren’t going to invest if trade policy changes from month to month.

Businesses dislike uncertainty more than taxes, which is the nature of tariffs. If the government sets the rules, without changing them every month, businesses will find a way to adapt. That’s what capitalism allows, which no other economic model can match.

3. Businesses have doubled down on customer marketing

The report traces policy uncertainty to shifts in marketing spend:

“In response to this uncertainty, almost half of marketers are pulling back their targeting strategies to focus on increasing the loyalty of their existing customers rather than pursuing new customers, especially new geographic markets. Growth spending is following a similar pattern with companies spending almost 60% of their budgets on market penetration strategies that focus on selling more of existing products and services to existing customers. This inward orientation is a consistent theme across the 2026 findings.”

This also shows up more clearly later in the survey, with findings around customer retention. Marketing leaders rate their company’s customer retention efforts higher than customer acquisition efforts. This is especially prominent in the B2B marketing sector as both B2B product and services outperformed the overall average.

Commentary: About this time two years ago, I covered two surveys that showed customer marketing was a neglected opportunity. Twenty-four months later, it feels like every company has fixed that – and then some.

For example, the volume of emails, calls and texts I get with cross-selling and upselling pitches is at a 12 on a scale of 1-10. Similarly, SaaS businesses have increasingly seen in-app messages as an untapped channel. QuickBooks, which is made by Intuit, barrages me with constant in-app messages.

It’s beyond obnoxious or inconvenient – it’s a sustained pattern of distracting interruptions on a daily and weekly basis. There’s little-to-no chance I’d reward that effort by buying more. On the contrary, I’m actively looking to find a replacement to rid myself of the noise.

That’s what marketing has to keep in mind, because while I’ve singled out an example, it’s pervasive in the tech sector; every company is doing it now. Nobody minds an occasional pitch, but don’t harass your customers. Your SaaS product is a strategic marketing channel when used sparingly; it’s a time-sucking irritation when businesses get overzealous.

4. AI needs a dose of reality

“AI use in marketing has nearly doubled in two years, rising from 13.1% of marketing activities in 2024 to 24.2% in 2026,” respondents said. “Generative AI has expanded even faster, growing 220%, from 7.0% to 22.4% over the same period. Companies project AI will account for 55.9% of marketing activities within three years.”

Commentary: We are at peak AI hype, or at least I hope we are. The most prominent voices stand to gain by making such claims. That conflict of interest is a healthy reason to be skeptical.

I read, study and use AI on a daily basis. I have conversations with clients that develop this stuff. It’s not AGI and it’s not even close. Absent some unforseen break through, there’s no way any of this will happen with an LLM. These systems are not delivering an answer based on truth; they are predicting the answer based on probability.

To be clear, generative AI is extremely useful, but it hasn’t lived up to the hype and I suspect the hype will mirror cold fusion: ‘just around the corner’ for the last 50 years.

It’s a bubble, just like the dot-com era was a bubble. The internet proved to be an invaluable tool, but it took a couple of decades. Generative AI is going to be similar – and new jobs will undoubtedly emerge – which is what happens every time society embraces significant new technological innovation.

The top generative AI use case in this survey was content creation (74%). That’s a huge risk to couple with the ‘good enough’ attitude some businesses have adopted.

It’s not good enough. Not when three-fourths of marketing content is produced by AI and all sounds the same. Further, editing AI copy can take as much, and even more time and effort than just doing it the right way the first time – not to mention the cognitive atrophy that comes with this over-reliance.

I’ve come to believe that generative AI enables a single subject matter expert (SME) to produce an output of 1.25 SMEs. Will it have an impact on entry-level hiring? We are already seeing that effect. The quip that ‘you won’t be replaced by AI, but you might be replaced by someone who learns to use AI’ has aged well. That’s exactly the trend to watch.

5. Outsourcing trends bring goodness to service providers

A little more than one-third of respondents (~34%) outsource digital marketing. That trendline will continue for at least the next two years, according to the survey. Here again, there is variance depending on the vertical market.

Digital marketing has had a tangible impact on business results too: “The contribution of digital marketing to company performance shows improvement over time with 73.2% of companies scoring 5 or above on the rating scale.”

Commentary: It’s a good time to be a consultant or freelancer. Businesses are resisting headcount growth and larger agencies are getting too expensive. Those people who are good at their jobs can comfortably build a business at rates traditional service providers just can’t match.

That’s a warning sign for marketing leaders, too: Employees who are good at their job are a flight risk. And businesses are behaving badly. The number of tech companies that report fat margins and also lay off thousands of employees on the same day is breathtaking.

This is going to bite them down the road. They will need to hire again in the future, and they’ve completely trashed their own brands. High-performing talent has options and a long memory.

6. Marketing’s value is increasingly recognized but…

“Organizations prioritize marketing capabilities to achieve higher return on investment for marketing spend,” the report says. On a scale of 1-7, respondents said marketing earns a 5.9 in terms of the “importance of marketing capabilities to an organization’s success.”

This new found appreciation for marketing is long overdue, but challenges remain:

“The most cited deficiency is not a missing skill but inadequate resourcing: 22.3% of marketers say existing capabilities simply lack the people, time, and budget needed to function effectively.”

The survey puts this into perspective, a bit later:

“Marketing headcount growth has slowed to 2.5% over the past year, down sharply from 5.4% in 2025, with companies projecting a similar modest pace of 2.6% growth in the year ahead.”

Meanwhile, sales have grown, but margins have shrunk, so pressure on cost-cutting, especially human resources, is likely to continue.

Commentary: Consultants and freelancers are good options, especially if you treat them as an extension of your team. That can help bridge the gap for talent, but there’s something far more important that marketing leaders can do: think programs, not campaigns.

Campaigns last for a short period of time. They require a lot of effort to get started and when it’s done, you’ve got to start all over again. Research. Strategy. Creative. Briefings. Review and approval. This is all just merely pushing paper around at the expense of execution.

Instead of running campaigns, structure programs that run indefinitely by building systems and processes. For example, treat email marketing as a program, not a campaign. This provides a repeatable, iterative and scalable approach, as opposed to reinventing email marketing with every campaign.

I’m not suggesting you skip strategy. What I am suggesting is that marketing builds the strategy once – and then executes. From that point forward, learn from that iteration and improve the next time.

Let your team run with it and have them brief on the progress during your meeting cadence. Revisit the research and strategy once a year, or after significant changes in leadership or market conditions.

The survey found 71% of marketing leaders view agility as key to their organization’s marketing success. You can’t possibly be agile with constant reinvention. You have to empower your team; train them well, provide left and right limits and document a decision-making process for issues that go beyond the limits set.

7. Marketing’s influence and responsibilities grow

This edition of the report has a lot of good news for marketing, too.

For example, its responsibilities have grown:

“Marketing’s formal scope of responsibility has continued to grow, with notable increases across a wide range of activities since 2025, including revenue growth (+10.3), public relations (+9.9 percentage points), and customer insight (+8.8).”

The “prove it” infatuation has moderated:

“Pressure from CEOs, boards, and CFOs to prove marketing’s value has eased slightly from 2025 levels but remains the experience of most marketing leaders.”

And marketing leaders have a seat at the strategy table:

“Marketing leaders are also participating more frequently in board meetings. By these measures, marketing’s organizational standing has strengthened.”

All this comes with a cautionary signal, too:

“The predominant response is a shift toward short-term impact over long-run gains…Marketers have devoted roughly twice as much time managing the present (68%) as preparing for the future (32%) every year since 2019.”

Commentary: The increased responsibility requires marketing leaders to delegate. You cannot do it all on your own, so hire good people and empower them to do their jobs.

Marketing should not lighten its efforts to measure results because the pressure has eased somewhat. The pressure on marketing for measurement is cyclical.

As for board meetings, it’s about time. Studies show board members with marketing experience improve shareholder returns by 3% – so it just makes sense, logically and financially, to have your marketing leadership involved in business planning.

The short-termism doesn’t strike me as alarming. In fact, I think the breakout of 70/30 seems about right. The one caveat I’d offer is that functions like public relations, brand and reputation are not built in a single fiscal quarter.

These awareness programs take consistent, high-quality effort over time to work. These do pair well with short-term lead generation programs, like PPC, paid social and email marketing.