2026
Marketing Leaders Reality Index
Get an honest look at how 300+ marketing leaders are funding growth, reshaping teams, and responding to higher targets. See where budgets are going, which teams are gaining resources, and how often marketers are being asked to deliver more without them.
What’s inside:
Chapter 1
Pipeline targets are rising faster than budgets.
Pipeline and revenue targets increased for 75.4% of teams, but only 43.0% saw their marketing budget increase.
Chapter 2
Budget approval is becoming a growth signal.
Less than a quarter of teams received their budget request in full. Those that did get full budget approval were 2.3 times more likely to grow their teams.
Chapter 3
Marketing teams are being rebuilt.
Teams are reducing agency spend, have stopped backfilling roles, and are shifting towards smaller, more senior teams.
Chapter 4
AI investment is ahead of AI maturity.
Almost 90% of teams are prioritizing new channels like AI search, but most have low confidence in their ability to measure its impact.
Chapter 5
What growing teams are doing differently.
There’s a marked difference between how teams are operating depending on their budget, headcount, and growth goals.
Anonymous takes from marketing leaders
The amount of behind-the-scenes work going into their AI efforts: editing slop, setting up systems, teaching others, reworking AI outputs, honing prompts.
Marketing leaderB2B SaaS company