Navigating Complexity: How CMOs Can Thrive with Precision Advertising

The modern CMO might have the hardest role in business.

Obviously, every company is different, but no role has been subject to so much change and increased responsibility as the CMO. Ever since the role emerged in the 1990s, the responsibilities and deliverables of a CMO have constantly been in flux.

Now, this isn’t just conjecture. This recent Digiday article details the challenges CMOs are facing and the various steps some of the biggest brands in the world are taking to combat those challenges–including, in some cases, eliminating the CMO role altogether. Reading it was both fascinating and exciting because the challenges the author describes are the same ones we’re building solutions for at Agility. Talk about product-market fit!

Several passages in the article grabbed my attention, and I couldn’t believe how simply and plainly they segue into a solution like precision advertising. I’ve pulled a couple and added commentary below.

“‘The marketer role is that red thread across the organization that knits everything together so that the messaging, the quality experience, the emotional resonance shows up in every single moment that the brand’s creating’”

This perfectly encapsulates the vital role marketing plays in modern businesses. 

Marketing is now present at every step of the customer journey. Your marketing team should maintain brand consistency throughout every campaign, channel, and touchpoint. But sometimes, maintaining consistency within just the marketing team itself takes work. Tools and platforms like CRMs and CMSs, robust approval processes, and regular checks help to minimize problems.

However, the list of advertising channels and formats is long and only getting longer. Part of the reason we’re building Agility is to help marketing teams consolidate their strategy and stop thinking in terms of channels and formats. With a single platform where all channels and formats are controlled, optimized, and used harmoniously to create an unforgettable ad experience that drives efficiently toward conversion.

“But there also needs to be a recognition that the responsibilities and expectations for [the CMO role] have already ballooned far beyond what they were originally.”

Marketing is now responsible for so much more than just brand communications. It’s integrated and fused to other revenue organizations, ensuring a consistent brand experience across every aspect of the customer journey while also being tied to down-funnel revenue numbers.

This isn’t a bad thing. On the contrary, marketing usually has sufficient data and technology at their fingertips to succeed. But the expansion of the marketing leader’s role frequently doesn’t acknowledge the increased workload and scrutiny that comes along with it. It’s no wonder brands like Starbucks and Walgreens have split the CMO responsibilities into two or more C-level roles.

Instead of adding more tasks, what if CMOs could find a solution that lets their team offload some of the tedious campaign management tasks and free them up to focus on strategic data-backed decision-making?

Precision advertising merges channels and formats into a single platform. Campaign managers don’t have to move budgets around and worry about optimizing each individual channel. Instead, precision advertising finds the right mix of channels and formats for each target persona to drive conversion. That means managers can spend more time understanding their target audience and working cross-functionally to create more efficient campaigns.

Precision advertising is full-funnel, cross-channel advertising for enterprise marketing teams.

“[E]xpectations of what marketers should be delivering for their businesses continu[e] to rise as marketing is being tied even closer to business results.”

It’s not uncommon for marketing to become a scapegoat for poor down-funnel performance. True, if the leads are not actually qualified, they can’t convert. But for many teams, marketing can only go so far. 

Because so many marketing teams operate in terms of channels, the targeting strategy between those channels doesn’t always line up. Each channel might use different data. It’s another example of a channel-first strategy that limits how effective advertising efforts can be.

Precision advertising layers data from multiple first- and third-party sources on top of one another and builds the most accurate picture of your target personas. Then, ads are delivered at the time and place that is most effective for that persona. For every business we work with, that results in higher quality leads and increased down-funnel conversion.

“Today, the CMO has a dual challenge: Ensuring they are deeply knowledgeable about the business with financial acumen, data fluency, and technical expertise amidst increasing complexity while also making sure that others in the C-Suite understand the investment and value of marketing (including long-term).”

CMOs live in limbo, having to understand, strategize, and provide direction to their teams while also serving as the liaison to the executive team, board, and (perhaps most difficult of all) finance teams.

Reporting to finance teams frequently focuses on last-touch attribution, but every marketer knows that’s not how the customer journey works. Marketing is a series of touchpoints that work together to move the target customer towards purchase or conversion. But until now, there haven’t been other methods to capture the impact of each touchpoint. Without a tool to accurately measure each touchpoint, it's no wonder the only thing that matters to finance teams is the channel that converts.

Precision advertising takes a different approach. Through rigorous data science methods, the revenue impact of each touchpoint can be calculated and reported on. The lift that precision advertising has on other channels like paid search and paid social can also be calculated. 

CMOs can then present their finance teams and boards with a more accurate picture of how money is being spent and the results they are driving. Instead of being told to pour money into last-touch campaigns, executive teams can understand the true value of campaigns and touchpoints.

“At the same time, marketers are having to do more with less, with every dollar working harder”

This is at the core of the whole issue. Belts are tightening, revenue streams are being scrutinized, and every dollar spent requires justification. In 2023, 75% of CMOs said they were asked to do more with less. 

At the same time, costs are rising and new channels feel risky and uncertain. CPMs and CPAs are rising, some by more than 90% in two years, ROAS is declining, and dollars don’t stretch as far on existing channels like paid search and paid social. Case in point: 65% of Google searches end without a click. Marketers pay for their ads to be shown, but consumers do not convert.

Marketers are being squeezed by the pressure to perform from the top and the rising costs from the bottom. 

Meanwhile, consumers only spend about one-third of their online time on social and search platforms. Why are teams investing more and more of their budget into paid social? It’s because teams are over-indexed on direct response performance marketing that can reported on with last-touch attribution.

Precision advertising is the solution to marketers' efficiency problems. By focusing on the customer journey, measuring the impact of each touchpoint, and then optimizing those touchpoints between channels, ad formats, messaging, and creative, target customers convert faster and require fewer touchpoints to reach conversion. For some of our customers, we’ve seen the average number of touchpoints to conversion be cut in half. That’s drastically more efficient and, therefore, cost-effective advertising.

In 2023, 71% of CMOs said they didn’t believe they had the budget to reach their goals. Efficiency is the new name of the game. Budget scrutiny is here to stay, and marketers can produce more with less through precision advertising.

This article directly validated the problems and challenges marketing leaders face and made it obvious that what we’re building here at Agility is firmly rooted in solving those problems. We understand the market, work hand-in-hand with our customers, and build to solve their problems. Test the precision advertising difference with your enterprise marketing team. Speak to a member of our sales team today.