The pack for the week of 26 October 2026
Edited by Lila Odinaev
Free to read. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and no agency pays to be listed.
CMO Tribune
The open record of the marketing leader's job: budgets, boards, teams, agencies and measurement.
Budget
What marketing costs, who it pays and how long its leaders stay, computed from public surveys and filings.
Gartner, 11 May 2026
AI marketing budget 2026: the 15.3% benchmark, where the money goes, and how to set your own AI line
Chief marketing officers (CMOs) allocated an average of 15.3% of their marketing budgets to artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives in 2026, according to Gartner's 2026 CMO Spend Survey. More AI-ready organizations allocated 21.3%. Those shares sat inside budgets that barely moved, at 7.8% of company revenue against 7.7% in 2025. This page compares other surveys, shows where the money went and sets the AI line for a $400 million company.
Read the benchmark, its method and sources
Brand vs performance marketing budget split: what the surveys show and how to set yours
The common guide is 60% brand, 40% activation, adjusted for category and situation. Gartner's 62.6% figure measures funnel stages, not brand share.
Average CMO Tenure by Index, Sector and Year
S&P 500 chief marketing officers averaged 4.1 years in the role in 2025, below the 5.0-year C-suite average. Tenure by index, sector and year.
Event marketing budget percentage: B2B benchmarks, their samples and their denominators
B2B exhibitors put 40.8% of marketing budgets into trade shows, per a 2025 industry survey of 362 firms. The share is of marketing spend, not revenue.
Marketing budget as a percentage of revenue in 2026, by sector and business model
Marketing budgets averaged 7.8% of revenue in 2026 per Gartner and 9.0% per The CMO Survey. Here is why the two differ and how to use each one.
Marketing team size benchmark, as a share of headcount and by revenue band
Marketing team size by revenue band runs from 0 to 2 marketers under $2M to 15 to 25+ over $50M, and labor took 24.5% of 2026 marketing budgets.
Martech budget percentage: the share fell to a five-year low, and what a stack audit looks like now
Martech took a mean 19.4% of marketing budgets in Gartner's 2026 survey, a five-year low from 26.6% in 2021. Here is how to check yours and audit the stack.
Playbooks
Plans, templates and guides for the work itself: the board, the team, the agency, the first 90 days.
How to calculate marketing ROI the way a CFO will accept it, with worked examples
To calculate marketing return on investment (ROI), subtract marketing cost from the return and divide by the cost. Then decide what counts as return. On example figures, a $1,000,000 campaign credited with $4,000,000 in revenue shows 300% on revenue and 140% on gross margin at 0.6. Once a holdout test counts only the incremental share, it shows -40%. Bring the chief financial officer (CFO) the incremental gross-margin figure.
The CMO first 90 days plan, week by week
A CMO's first 90 days: listen in weeks 1 to 4, audit in weeks 5 to 8, plan in weeks 9 to 13, and end with CFO-agreed metrics and a board readout.
How to choose a marketing agency, with a five-stage method and a scoring sheet you fill in yourself
Choose a marketing agency in five stages: define the need, longlist, request information, run chemistry calls and a pitch, then negotiate terms.
Marketing budget cuts playbook: what to cut first, what to protect and how to win budget back
Cut martech and agency scope before media, hold share of voice at or above market share, and price every cut for finance, with triggers to win budget back.
Agency contract checklist: the terms a CMO should read twice
An agency contract checklist covers eight clause groups, from scope and fees to rebates, audit rights, data ownership, AI use and exit terms.
Marketing agency RFP template: sections, pricing table and scoring weights that make answers comparable
Eight fixed sections, one pricing table and published scoring weights make agency RFP answers comparable. Allow about four weeks and shortlist five.
Annual marketing plan template: the four-page plan a CEO and CFO will read
A four-page annual marketing plan template: targets and math, bets and budget, calendar and team, measures and risks, with worked budget and pipeline numbers.
Record
Appointments and departures of chief marketing officers, from company announcements, filings and established trade press.
A move a company has not confirmed is marked as reported.
- AppointedAnna GreeneChief Marketing OfficerReported by TheIndustry.beauty; not yet confirmed by LYMA or an established publicationLYMATheIndustry.beauty
- DepartedJaclyn HoffmanChief Marketing OfficerLQR House Inc.SEC Form 8-K, Item 5.02
- AppointedTim StutzChief Marketing OfficerInsight GlobalPR NewswireCompiled from public records on 23 Oct 2026; announced 14 Oct 2026.
- AppointedCasey HurbisChief Marketing OfficerCinch Home ServicesPR NewswireCompiled from public records on 23 Oct 2026; announced 8 Oct 2026.
- AppointedKaty HillerChief Marketing OfficercommercetoolsPR NewswireCompiled from public records on 23 Oct 2026; announced 6 Oct 2026.
- AppointedAlison DurantChief Marketing OfficerMark43PR NewswireCompiled from public records on 23 Oct 2026; announced 1 Oct 2026.
- AppointedJohn Ludekechief marketing officerCavaMarketing DiveCompiled from public records on 23 Oct 2026; announced 30 Sep 2026.
Agencies
Listed alphabetically. The vault is unranked: no agency pays to be listed, and list order is never sold.
Facts come from each agency's own pages; who an agency fits is labelled as our opinion.
- SEO69 listed
- AEO and AI search visibility33 listed
- Content marketing51 listed
- Digital PR26 listed
- Brand strategy and positioning21 listed
- Social creative and video30 listed
- Performance creative23 listed
- Fractional CMO firms15 listed
- Marketing recruiters14 listed
- Analytics and attribution consultancies22 listed
Digests
Public reports read for you: the numbers, what to do with them, and what they rest on.
Gartner CMO Spend 2026: budgets at 7.8% of revenue, AI at 15.3% of marketing spend
In two minutes
- Marketing budgets averaged 7.8% of company revenue in 2026, which Gartner put at 18% lower than the mean allocation four years earlier.
- Budgets rose 1.3% since 2025, while 73% of CMOs described leadership's growth expectations as "high," "very high" or "overly ambitious."
- CMOs allocated 15.3% of budgets to artificial intelligence (AI), yet only 30% reported the mature AI readiness needed to scale it.
- Paid media reached 31.4% of budgets, funded by cuts to agencies, while loyalty and retention investment declined.
- Gartner framed the year as a trilemma: deliver more with limited resources, meet higher expectations and carry out AI transformation.
- Fewer CMOs reported exceeding targets, and more reported falling short on acquisition, retention and return on investment (ROI).
Key numbers
- 7.8%: average marketing budget as a share of company revenue, 2026 (section "The state of marketing budgets in 2026").
- 18%: how much lower the 2026 average budget share is than the mean allocation four years earlier (section "The state of marketing budgets in 2026").
- 1.3%: increase in marketing budgets since 2025 (section "CMOs face a sharpening set of trade-offs in 2026").
- 73%: share of CMOs describing growth expectations as high, very high or overly ambitious, 2026 (section "CMOs face a sharpening set of trade-offs in 2026").
- 15.3%: share of 2026 marketing budgets allocated to AI (section "Marketing's AI investments and capabilities").
- 30%: share of CMOs reporting mature AI readiness needed to scale, 2026 (section "Marketing's AI investments and capabilities").
- 31.4%: share of 2026 marketing budgets going to paid media (section "Investment trends in channels and resources").
Voices
Marketing leaders who said something in public that another leader can use. We record who, where and when, and add our take; we never copy the post.
Richard Shotton
Founder; Marketing Week columnist, Astroten
On using concrete, visual messaging in advertising for memorability
Kieran Flanagan
SVP of Marketing, HubSpot
On how AI search summaries are reshaping content marketing strategy for companies
Kieran Flanagan
SVP of Marketing, HubSpot
On hiring marketers with entertainment and creator backgrounds as AI commoditizes content
Newsletter
Written by the desk, edited by Lila Odinaev.
The Friday pack: the week's new pages, the Voices worth your time with our take, and the agencies added to the directory, in one email.