The Chief

Marketing
Officer
First Quarter 2022

Driving Digital Acceleration

Assess Your Digital

Commerce Maturity

Balance Your Digital

Experience Strategy
to Win Over Customers

3 Keys to Successful
Marketing Technology
Integration

Leadership Spotlight

The Marketing and

IT Relationship
With Fabio Biasella, Chief Marketing Officer
at Travis Credit Union 1Q22 1
 The Chief
Marketing
Officer
First Quarter 2022
Letter From the Editor Table of Contents

In most companies, the last two years have witnessed a dramatic acceleration in Editor in Chief
Michael Giblin

4
digital business initiatives across the enterprise. While every function has a stake in
this evolution, for you the successful execution of digital initiatives has been nothing Assess Your Digital
Managing Editors
short of existential. From scaling digital commerce capabilities and reshaping routes Commerce Maturity Geoffrey Campen
to market, to the continued optimization of digital marketing and the orchestration Kristina LaRocca-Cerrone
of multichannel journeys, digital acceleration is absolutely mission-critical. To shape
Authors

8
your companies’ digital futures, you and your team must leverage digital assets and
Use Tailored Help to Amy Abatangle
expertise to drive a new form of integrated, cross-functional operational excellence.
Personalize Digital Commerce Benjamin Bloom
This issue of The Chief Marketing Officer starts by providing a framework to honestly Sharon Cantor Ceurvorst
and accurately assess your organization’s digital commerce maturity across five key Ant Duffin
pillars: strategy, culture, organization, execution and operations. But as the digital

12
Michael Giblin
commerce landscape matures, differentiation in digital commerce is becoming Balance Your Digital Experience Kristina LaRocca-Cerrone
increasingly difficult. In Gartner’s 2020 Digital Experience Customer Survey, nearly Strategy to Win Over Customers Devon Weidemann
half (46%) of customers surveyed say they can’t tell the difference between most
brands’ digital experiences. Whether through smoothing a customer’s buying journey

18
or changing their course entirely, personalizing experiences continues to represent R&A Studio
your best path forward. How Marketers Must Prepare
Designers
to Collaborate With RevOps
A successful customer-facing digital strategy requires close collaboration between Katelyn Betchley
you and your counterparts in other key functions, particularly in sales and IT Divya Malkani
organizations. We explore revenue operations (RevOps) as a new form of alignment

22
Editor
between marketing and sales leaders, which focuses on analytics, and shared 3 Keys to Successful Marketing Karen Ross
data and workflow across different aspects of go-to-market functions. And given Technology Integration
the importance of the technology that underpins all digital marketing, we tackle
marketing and IT collaboration through the keys to successful martech integration.
Finally, to get a sense for how you can help deepen your team’s relationship with its

28
The Marketing and IT Relationship: © 2022 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

counterparts in IT, we sat down with Fabio 

Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and its

An Interview With Travis Credit Union’s

affiliates. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed

Biasella, CMO at Travis Credit Union, to discuss the evolution of the marketing-IT
in any form without Gartner’s prior written permission. It
consists of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization,

relationship at his organization. CMO Fabio Biasella which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the
information contained in this publication has been obtained
from sources believed to be reliable, Gartner disclaims all
We hope this and future issues of The Chief Marketing Officer guide your organization’s warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of
such information. Although Gartner research may address
way to success in 2022 and beyond. legal and financial issues, Gartner does not provide legal or
investment advice and its research should not be construed
or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are
governed by Gartner’s Usage Policy. Gartner prides itself on
its reputation for independence and objectivity. Its research is
produced independently by its research organization without
— Michael Giblin input or influence from any third party. For further information,
see “Guiding Principles on Independence and Objectivity.”

Any third-party link herein is provided for your convenience

and is not an endorsement by Gartner. We have no control
over third-party content and are not responsible for these
websites, their content or their availability. By clicking on any
third-party link herein, you acknowledge that you have read
and understand this disclaimer.

764274

2 CMO Journal 1Q22 3

 Digital commerce growth and penetration
are accelerating,1 driven by shifts in customer
attitudes and behaviors toward buying online —
both in B2B and B2C.2 The importance of digital
commerce to marketers is reflected in 2021
Gartner Digital Commerce Survey:3
• Eighty-six percent believe that digital
commerce will become the most important
sales channel within the next two years.
• Eight-nine percent say they need to evolve their
current digital business capabilities to produce
• Ninety percent are expanding their investments
in additional capabilities to support digital
commerce is a priority for their organization.
Organizations will need to reach different digital
commerce maturity levels depending on their
industry, business model, technical sophistication
and goals. Yet whether you’re building an entirely
new digital commerce capability or increasing
existing maturity, everyone must embark on a
transformational journey. To help your organization
understand its current state, where it’s going and
how it’s going to get there, begin with Gartner’s 5

Assess Your Digital

more tangible digital commerce results. Digital Commerce Pillars (see Figure 1.)

Commerce Maturity Figure 1. Gartner’s Digital Commerce Pillars

by Ant Duffin

Strategy Culture Organization Execution Operations

Digital commerce is one of the biggest growth Vision Leadership Structure Performance Best Practice
priorities for CMOs as they adapt to evolving
customer purchase behaviors and expectations.
Go-to-Market Growth Digital
Use this maturity model to understand the aspects Governance Processes
Models Mindset Experience
of an advanced digital commerce model and
assess your current maturity. Roadmap Test and
Investment
Go-to-Market
Technology
to Achieve Learn Channels

Transformation Digital-First Data/

Talent Innovation
KPIs Thinking Analytics

X-Functional
Partners P&L
Collaboration

Performance
and Reward

Source: Gartner

4 CMO Journal 1Q22 5

 These key foundations provide a common language between all business stakeholders to frame maturity Level 1 — Nascent Level 4 — Advanced
assessment conversations. For each pillar, there are five levels of maturity (see Figure 2).
At Level 1, organizations are at the start of their Digital commerce is a critical priority for these
digital commerce journey. There might be some organizations, with a strategy to drive value
digital commerce activity being executed, but there from the core of the business, as well as drive
Figure 2. Gartner’s Digital Commerce Maturity Framework
isn’t a strategy or roadmap to really unlock the incremental value from digital-first initiatives.
growth opportunity. Most nascent organizations Their organizational mindset and belief toward
Nascent Developing Intermediate Advanced Mastery do not fully understand the opportunity of digital digital commerce is shifted such that everyone
commerce, or simply do not believe it is right for knows they have a role to play in championing
No strategy, Short-term Medium-term Long-term (3-5 DC is a key
their customers, industry or business model. and driving it.
but DC is (1 year) strategic (1-2 years) years) strategy & pillar of the
considered an vision, KPIs strategy to scale roadmap to drive overall business Execution is well-established for key marketing
opportunity. and short-term existing plus current portfolio strategy.
Level 2 — Developing
and sales channels with supporting digital
Strategy roadmap in explore new plus new digital Organizations at Level 2 have started their digital commerce innovation activities to build on
place. digital value. value. commerce journey. They have proven the concept solid execution foundations and tactics. This
through pilot initiatives; the focus is now on putting a is managed through a fully embedded hybrid
short-term strategy and roadmap in place to increase organization model with critical operational
Fixed mindset Leadership Leadership DC has driven Everyone is a digital business capabilities. These organizations
capabilities in place to enable execution.
impacting belief building championing growth mindset DC champion also strive to deliver commercial growth through a
belief in DC through T&L and DC, T&L to explore responsible for digital commerce center of excellence that executes Level 5 — Mastery
opportunity. cross-functional established, new digital- digital success. the strategy and operations in partnership with
Culture projects. digital-first first growth core business functions. Digital commerce is a top strategic priority
opportunities opportunities. for these organizations, which is consistently
explored. Level 3 — Intermediate delivering against short-term commercial targets
as well as longer-term transformational targets.
At Level 3, organizations have a medium-term
No formalized Leader assigned Start to Organization No digital CoE. Digital commerce has been fully integrated
strategy (one to two years) and are executing
DC structure to head up DC establish hybrid has fully shifted DC roles and throughout these organization’s strategies,
across a small number of priority marketing and
or recognized CoE supported DC model to a hybrid responsibilities cultures and organization structures.
leader. by external between CoE DC operating integrated into sales channels that are delivering tangible results
from the core brand and product portfolio. Digital The execution of the strategy consistently meets
Organization partners and and business. model. core business
business functions. commerce is championed by leadership with or exceeds targets, which are championed
functions. the belief that it can deliver incremental value. and proactively communicated to internal and
Organizations start to pivot their digital commerce external stakeholders. All digital commerce
Little DC Execution Structured Established Best-in-class strategy, operating model and business capabilities capabilities are in place and embedded, with a
execution in is ad-hoc/ execution multichannel execution to explore and unlock incremental digital-first value. shift of focus to operational optimization.
place with unstructured, across core plan with delivering
minimal performance channels clear KPIs and commercial
Execution investment or is inconsistent that deliver P&L. Selective goals with
is happening and no P&L. consistent ROI. innovation aggressive
1
The State of Marketing Budgets in 2021: Insights From Gartner’s Annual CMO Spend Survey
in silos. activities investment.
2
Digitalization: The Economic Shift from the Material to the Intellectual, Financial Times.
executed.
3
2021 Gartner Digital Commerce Survey. The purpose of this survey was to identify top trends around digital
commerce with regards to budgeting, staffing, org design, acquisition strategy, media strategy, tools and, third-party
Little or Developing Critical best All DC All DC providers. The research was conducted online from August through September 2021 among 409 respondents,
no digital critical best practice and operational capabilities where 161 were located in North America (the U.S. and Canada) and 248 in Western Europe (the U.K., Germany and
commerce practices/key key processes capabilities operational and France). Respondents were required to have involvement in decisions pertaining to digital commerce strategy and/or
operational processes. embedded. in place but fully embedded. execution of this strategy. Seventy-nine percent of the respondents came from organizations with $1 billion or more
in annual revenue. The respondents came from a variety of industries: financial services (n = 41), tech products (n =39),
Operations capabilities Critical tech Critical tech/ still being
manufacturing (n = 41), consumer products (n = 46), media (n = 37), retail (n = 42), healthcare providers (n = 43), IT and
in place. capabilities, analytics embedded
business services (n = 39), travel and hospitality (n = 45), and wholesale (n = 36).
gaps exist. in place. The survey was developed collaboratively by a team of Gartner analysts and Gartner’s Research Data, Analytics and
Tools team.
DC = digital commerce; T&L = test and learn Disclaimer: Results of this survey do not represent global findings or the market as a whole, but reflect the sentiments
Source: Gartner of the respondents and companies surveyed.

6 CMO Journal 1Q22 7

 Eighty-six percent of marketing leaders agree that
digital commerce will become their company’s
most important sales channel within the next
two years.1 For most organizations, achieving
this outcome will require the rapid maturation
of capabilities, which may explain why only 27%
of respondents reported exceeding their senior
leaders’ performance expectations for revenue
and profitability last year.1
One of marketing’s most important roles in
using customer data and defined rules to trigger
messages to specific customers, data-driven
content customization, and the creation of
increasingly connected customer experiences
throughout the buying journey.
Although this task has always represented
technical challenges — from securing data to
automating triggers — it has recently become
substantially more difficult due to multichannel

Use Tailored Help

complexity, regulatory issues and rising
driving digital commerce is scaling the delivery
of personalized content and experiences. Gartner customer privacy concerns.1 To make matters
defines personalization as the practice of using more complicated, personalized content and

to Personalize customer data to deliver a tailored interaction messaging walks a fine line between invasiveness
between the brand and the customer. The intent and irrelevance. Fifty-five percent of customers

Digital Commerce
of personalization is to provide the right message
to the right person at the right time to drive
conversion and customer satisfaction. At heart,
By Michael Giblin it involves the integration of several capabilities:
say they’ll stop doing business when a brand
communicates in a way they find invasive, while
40% will stop doing business when a brand
communication is irrelevant (see Figure 1).2

Figure 1. Relevance and Invasiveness, A Double Bind

Customer Action Based on Brand Communication

Stop Doing Business Block

Scaling personalization is a major investment priority Irrelevant or Annoying Creepy or Invasive

that is made more difficult for CMOs by the uncertain
59%
future of data availability and evolving customer 55%
privacy concerns. As a result, CMOs must rethink how
they deliver relevant and helpful personalized content
44%
to customers. 40%

Brand Communication
n = 1,499 customers (991 consumers and 508 B2B buyers)
Q: When a brand communicates to you in a way you find irrelevant or annoying and creepy or invasive?
Source: Gartner 2021 Personalization Survey

8 CMO Journal 1Q22 9

 Our research sought to help CMOs by testing
the effectiveness of two distinct categories
of perceived personalized message intent:
tailoring and helping. Personalized elements that
demonstrate tailoring demonstrate a brand’s
knowledge about who the customer is, such as
their name and their demographic attributes,
while elements aimed at helping use knowledge
about what the customer needs to provide a
range of possible utilities such as goal setting
or product comparison.2
We tested the impact of customers perceiving
content as tailored to them, helpful, both tailored
and helpful, and neither tailored nor helpful, on an
index of commercially beneficial outcomes (CBI)
such as purchasing and increased cart size. What
we found is cause for you to make a strategic
pivot (see Figure 2).
Figure 2. Impact of Tailoring and Help Factors on Commercial Benefit Index
0%
-14%
Neither Tailoring Tailoring Without
nor Helping Helping
n = 1,499 customers (991 consumers and 508 B2B buyers)
Source: Gartner 2021 Personalization Survey
Note: The change multipliers are based on the model values from the combinations of -2SD and +1SD on Tailoring and
Helping. I.e., Neither Tailoring Nor Helping (both -2SD values), Tailoring (+1SD) without Helping (-2SD), Helping
(+1SD) without Tailoring (-2SD), Providing Tailored Help (both +1SD). Multiple regression model with controls for
age, gender, income, education, country, purchase cost, purchase industry, message channel, primary task,
D2C/3rd party purchase, message content type, brand purchase history, and B2C/B2B respondent type.
10 CMO Journal
The leftmost data point in Figure 2, used as the
baseline (0%) to compare the remaining three
bars to, represents both low tailoring and low
helping. It can be understood as the delivery
of “non-personalized” messages compared
to the remaining three bars. The second bar,
representing a tailored message that doesn’t
provide help, actually performs 14% worse
than non personalized messages. The third
bar shows that content focused on helping
without tailoring performs 17% better than non
personalized content, while combining the two
elements and delivering what we call tailored
help leads to a 32% increase in CBI relative to
not personalizing.2
Tailored Help: Messages or content designed
to provide valuable assistance or support using
data specific to the individual consumer.
32%
17%
Helping Without Providing
Tailoring Tailored Help
Our research surfaced instances of help that
appear in response to six types of issues that
customers encounter, representing distinct
opportunities for CMOs to provide help
throughout the customer life cycle (see Figure 3).2
When done correctly, personalization provides
tailored help that is highly relevant, which
mitigates the risk of invasiveness. Data
dimensions that indicate customer needs are the
Figure 3. Timing and Intent of Six Types of Help
Stage In Journey Customer Issue
Exploration Tasks “I don’t know what I want”
Exploration Tasks “I don’t know what I don’t know”
Exploration Tasks “I don’t know what others want”
“I don’t know what product
Decision Tasks
options there are”
“I don’t have the time or
Decision Tasks
energy to decide and buy”
“I’m not sure that I made
Decision Tasks
the right decision”
Source: Gartner
2021 Gartner Digital Commerce Survey. The purpose
1
of this survey was to identify top trends around digital
commerce with regards to budgeting, staffing, org
design, acquisition strategy, media strategy, tools and,
third- party providers. The research was conducted
online from August through September 2021 among 409
respondents, where 161 were located in North America
(the U.S. and Canada) and 248 in Western Europe
(the U.K., Germany and France). Respondents were
required to have involvement in decisions pertaining
to digital commerce strategy and/or execution of this
strategy. Seventy-nine percent of the respondents
came from organizations with $1 billion or more in
annual revenue. The respondents came from a variety
of industries: financial services (n = 41), tech products
(n =39), manufacturing (n = 41), consumer products (n =
46), media (n = 37), retail (n = 42), healthcare providers
(n = 43), IT and business services (n = 39), travel and
hospitality (n = 45), and wholesale (n = 36).
The survey was developed collaboratively by a team of
most valuable for creating relevant tailored help.
Work with your team to identify opportunities
to utilize your data in creative ways, uncovering
indicators of customer needs that provide
opportunities to intervene with personalized
helpful content.
Focus first on helping, then add in tailoring
as needed to aid the delivery and relevance
of helpful content.
Type of Help
Self Reflection — Teach me
something new about myself
Self Discovery — Help me
identify a new need
Connection — Help me relate
to others
Direction — Guide me to the
right product for my needs
Efficiency — Make processes
easier or quicker
Affirmation — Help validate
my decision
Gartner analysts and Gartner’s Research Data, Analytics
and Tools team.
Disclaimer: Results of this survey do not represent
global findings or the market as a whole, but reflect the
sentiments of the respondents and companies surveyed.
2
Gartner 2021 Personalization Survey. The Gartner 2021
Personalization Survey includes data from 1499 B2B and
B2C customers from the U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia,
and New Zealand. To qualify for the survey, respondents
must have considered purchasing from a brand or
supplier and recalled a recent communication from that
brand or supplier. B2B customers must have worked
for an organization with at least US$250 million in
annual revenue and have been involved in a significant
purchase decision on behalf of their company (i.e., a
decision involving multiple potential vendors and more
than one decision maker). The survey was designed
to explore buyers’ and consumers’ behaviors and
expectations regarding personalized communications.
The survey was fielded in October 2021.
1Q22 11
 Across the past year, CMOs have prioritized
digital experience investments such as
product/service enhancements, new sales
or service delivery channels and interactive
digital content.1 Yet, these investments often
fail to provide competitive differentiation
or shape customers’ journeys. In fact, only
Most Digital Experiences
Are Undifferentiated
To understand the current state of digital
experiences, Gartner examined the site features
of nearly 1,000 brands across B2B and B2C
industries. We found that most brand sites have

Balance Your 14% of customers did something different the same core features, such as category pages
(i.e., “changed course”) after a recent digital and educational content (e.g., email newsletters
and blogs).3

Digital Experience
experience.2 These findings suggest that in their
current state, digital channels are merely places To complement our analysis of site features, we
for customers to enact decisions they’ve already also surveyed over 3,000 B2B and B2C customers

Strategy to Win
made, rather than places where the customer about a recent digital experience they had with
journey is meaningfully shaped. This research a brand. B2B customers often used customer

Over Customers
will help you understand how to use different portals, e-commerce websites and virtual
types of digital experiences to selectively product demos; B2C customers used real-time
trigger course changes and shape the overall inventory trackers, mobile app features and
customer journey. interactive content.2
By Sharon Cantor Ceurvorst, Kristina LaRocca-Cerrone
and Devon Weidemann
Figure 1. Customers’ Perceptions on Ease of Digital Experience by Industry
Q: "The Digital Experience Was Easy to Use"

Agree Neither Agree nor Disagree Disagree

Technology 93% 5% 1%
Digital experiences often fail to shape B2B and
B2C customer journeys: Only 14% of customers did
Retail 92% 5% 3%
something different after a recent digital experience.
CMOs should use this research to build a digital
experience portfolio that accelerates purchase Travel and Hospitality 92% 5% 3%
momentum and shifts customers’ trajectory.
Other 91% 6% 3%

Manufacturing 91% 5% 4%

Financial Services 90% 7% 3%

Healthcare 89% 5% 6%

0% 50% 100%
n = 3,013 customers
Source: 2020 Gartner Digital Experience Customer Survey
Note: Bars may not sum to 100% due to rounding.

12 CMO Journal 1Q22 13

 Regardless of the specific type of digital
experience they had, customers uniformly
described their digital experience as easy
(see Figure 1). They also rated the digital
experience as the same or better than
other similar experiences — both within the
same category and across other product/
service categories.
Gartner’s combined analysis of site features
and customers’ digital experiences reveals that
most experiences look and feel very similar, and
they make it easy for customers to do what they
were already planning to do. However, feature
convergence is like a double-edged sword:
Figure 2. Customers’ Perceived Impact of Digital Experiences on Buying Behavior by Industry
Q: Most Branded Digital Experiences Don't Impact What I End Up Buying
Agree Neither Agree nor Disagree
It may create a sense of convenience across
different brand sites, but it does little to drive
differentiation for a particular brand.
Not surprisingly, customers see digital
experiences as undifferentiated. Forty-six
percent of customers report that they can’t tell
the difference between most brands’ digital
experiences and, across industries, most
customers believe that digital experiences don’t
affect what they end up buying (see Figure 2).
CMOs must move beyond offering standard
site features and make strategic investments to
differentiate the digital experience and shape
customer journeys.
Disagree
Deploy a Two-Pronged Strategy:
Course Smoothers and Course Changers
To pinpoint the best opportunities for strategic
digital investments, our research dug into how
and why customers use digital experiences. We
found that customers complete a range of tasks
digitally. Some of these tasks are more automatic,
while others are more naturally reflective.
The most automatic tasks happen close to the
point of sale, such as product selection and
purchasing. By contrast, the most reflective
customer tasks are exploratory in nature, such
as goal setting and problem identification.
Our research found that customers who complete
reflective tasks are 40% more likely to change
course, ultimately improving brand preference
and behavioral advocacy.2
Automatic tasks represent the best opportunity
for course-smoothing digital experiences that make
it frictionless for customers to do what they were
already planning to do. When it comes to delivering
course-changing digital experiences, you should
prioritize customers’ exploratory, reflective tasks
such as goal setting and problem identification.
Rather than making the experience as easy as
possible, introduce productive friction to help
customers pause, deliberate and ultimately make
a better decision for your needs (see Figure 3).
Companies’ efforts to design and launch
new digital experiences risk falling short of
expectations, unless CMOs balance their digital
experience portfolio with course changers
as well as course smoothers. While removing
friction from the customer journey helps
customers who were already inclined to convert,
only course-changing experiences can shift
customer behavior in the direction of long-term
customer loyalty. Ultimately, you must develop
a balanced portfolio of course-smoothing and
course-changing digital experiences to shape
the trajectory of customer journeys.

Financial Services 68% 17% 13%

Figure 3. Four Considerations for Building a High-Impact Digital Experience

Automatic Reflective
Manufacturing 68% 16% 15%
• Product Selection • Goal Setting
Type of • Purchasing • Problem Identification
Customer Task • Validation • Skill Building
Healthcare 66% 20% 14% • Consultation

Transactional Exploratory
Other 64% 18% 17% • What, where, and how should I buy? • What are my priorities and challenges?
Questions • What is the status of something • What do I need to learn more about?
Customers Ask I bought before? • What do my peers think?
Technology 64% 17% 19%
Reduce Friction Reward Learning
• Remove unnecessary steps • Amplify mixed emotions
Retail 50% 30% 20% How to Catalyze • Automate recurring choices • Facilitate in-the-moment reflection
Progress

Travel and Hospitality 48% 26% 26%

Course Smoothers Course Changers
• Pricing estimates and one- • Interactive diagnostics
0% 50% 100% Potential Digital click purchase and benchmarks
n = 3,013 customers Experiences • Personalized recommendations • VR/AR simulators
Source: 2020 Gartner Digital Experience Customer Survey • Inventory tracking • Real-time advisors
Note: Bars may not sum to 100% due to rounding. Source: Gartner

14 CMO Journal 1Q22 15

 1
2020 Gartner CMO Strategic Priorities Survey. This survey
was conducted to understand how marketing leaders are
navigating the post-COVID-19 environment. It focused
on how they are reflecting on their position within the
company, their role in strategic decision making, and May 23 – 25, 2022 I Americas I Virtual
how they are navigating through difficult times to best
position their 2021 marketing strategy and budgets. The
gartner.com/us/marketing
research was conducted online from September through
October 2020, among 381 respondents with 198 in
North America (U.S. and Canada) and 183 in Western The World’s Most Important
Europe (the U.K., France and Germany). Respondents
were required to be involved in decisions pertaining to Gathering of CMOs and
setting or influencing marketing strategy and planning,
as well as be involved in aligning marketing budget and/
Marketing Executives™
or resources. Eighty-five percent of the respondents
came from organizations with $1 billion or more in
annual revenue. The respondents came from a variety
of industries: financial services (n = 42), high tech (n =
42), manufacturing (n = 42), consumer products (n =
39), media (n = 44), retail (n = 42), healthcare providers
(n = 41), IT and business services (n = 47), and travel and
hospitality (n = 42).
The survey was developed collaboratively by a team of
Join us at our 2022 conference, designed exclusively to help
Gartner analysts and Gartner’s Research Data, Analytics CMOs and marketing leaders uncover new strategies, share
and Tools team.
Disclaimer: Results of this survey do not represent innovative ideas and gain new perspectives on the challenges
global findings or the market as a whole, but reflect the and opportunities of business transformation with sessions
sentiments of the respondents and companies surveyed.
2
2020 Gartner Digital Experience Survey. This survey backed by the latest research.
includes data from 3,013 B2B and B2C customers from
the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand,
Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines and India. At this year’s conference you learn to:
To qualify for the survey, respondents must have
considered purchasing from a sampled brand or • Uncover the skills, tools and vision necessary • Drive growth through sales channels,
supplier and recalled having interacted with a digital to optimize marketing and inform critical third-party digital commerce and
technology from that brand or supplier within six
months of taking the survey. B2B customers must have business decisions partnerships with direct and indirect
worked for an organization with at least $500 million in sales teams
annual revenue and have been involved in a significant • Explore the capabilities, cultural changes
purchase decision on behalf of their company (i.e., a and processes marketing and CX leaders • Prove the value of your technology
decision involving multiple potential vendors and more need to adopt to move from saying CX is investments and navigate the martech
than one decision maker). The survey was designed
to explore buyers’ and consumers’ motivations and important to execution landscape to support your marketing
expectations of branded digital experiences to strategy
determine which elements of digital experiences • Effectively manage touchpoints through
drive brand preference and advocacy. The survey was multichannel orchestration and cross-functional • Develop a communication strategy
fielded in December 2020. collaboration to support the customer journey across employees, business partners,
The survey was developed collaboratively by a team of
Gartner analysts and Gartner’s Research Data, Analytics and deliver business goals shareholders and customers to drive
and Tools team. measurable results
Disclaimer: Results of this survey do not represent
global findings or the market as a whole, but do
reflect sentiments of the respondents and companies
surveyed.
Learn More
3
Gartner analysis of Digital Performance Benchmarks
site data. Register with code GMLVA1 for an exclusive discount.
© 2022 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. EVTM_949_1673684

16 CMO Journal 1Q22 17

 As organizations seek growth from existing
customers, CMOs and other commercial leaders
are realizing the importance of managing,
measuring and maximizing the impact of their
efforts against each stage of the customer life
cycle, crossing traditional lines of departmental
responsibility.
In many organizations, these changes reveal
the potential for a new form of collaboration
operations model and its potential for disrupting
how their teams are structured, resourced
and measured.
What Is RevOps?
RevOps is an end-to-end function based on
shared data, observability and workflow across
different aspects of go-to-market functions like
marketing, sales, customer success and support,
with the primary aim of accelerating predictable

How Marketers Must

among commercial leaders: revenue operations growth across the entire customer life cycle.
(RevOps). It is imperative that you understand Consider RevOps when some or all of these
the benefits and limitations of pursuing a revenue criteria are met (see Figure 1).

Prepare to Collaborate
With RevOps
Figure 1. RevOps Applicability Criteria
RevOps Should Be Considered When Some or All of These Criteria Are Met

By Amy Abatangle
Model Depends on Human Assistance
Assisted Sale or Service
in Sales or Service

Growth Focus Organization Is Focused Primarily on Revenue Growth

CMOs face increasing budget scrutiny, yet are on the

hook to deliver more in terms of customer acquisition, Model Includes Account Expansion Through Upsell,
Upsell, Cross-Sell Opportunities
and life cycle management. Drive cross-functional Cross-Sell Opportunities
alignment of operations with sales leaders or risk
missing your targets.
Model Depends on Recurring Revenue
Recurring Revenue Model
Through Subscriptions, Memberships or Fees

Longer Sales Cycle Duration of Sales Cycle Is Greater Than 30 Days

Multiple Routes to Market via Direct

Channel Complexity
or Indirect Channels

Complex, Solution Sales or Offerings

Product or Service Complexity
Requiring Customization

Source: Gartner

18 CMO Journal 1Q22 19


What Are the Benefits of RevOps?
Like agile marketing before it RevOps, as an
approach, is designed to improve collaboration
within the enterprise and accelerate value creation
for the customer. Its success can be measured
by achievement against cross-functional KPIs like
customer lifetime value to customer acquisition
cost (LTV/CAC) ratios, customer satisfaction scores,
and marketing and sales pipeline velocity. CMOs
leading RevOps initiatives can derive these benefits:
• Improved customer engagement: Teams that
can work together to orchestrate engagement
throughout the customer life cycle have the
best opportunity to create a value-added
perception of the brand with the customer.
Consistency in and quality of messaging across
customer touchpoints is a cornerstone of brand
building. Customer experience initiatives and
loyalty programs rely heavily on a clear, unified
approach to journey orchestration.
• Reduced organizational tensions: Teams that
operate with a high degree of trust, collaboration
and transparency avoid misalignment that
can result in conflicting strategies, objectives,
messages and outcomes. These seemingly internal
issues can spill over into customer-facing impacts
with clunky handoffs and broken processes.
• Better business outcomes: When go-to-market
teams share business objectives and outcomes,
they inevitably collaborate more readily and
build trust — increasing both efficiency and
effectiveness. When they don’t, teams can end
up inadvertently pulling in different directions,
resulting in unintended consequences like
increases to cost of sale or lower retention rates.
CMOs are in a unique position within the
enterprise to play a connective role between
commercial functions, already possessing these
core competencies and responsibilities:
• Defining brand strategy and execution,
increasing both brand equity and brand value
• Centering customer understanding at the core
of go-to-market initiatives
• Driving innovation within the enterprise and
agility in responding to changing customer
sentiment, behaviors and preferences
• Leading with creativity, with a foundation
in design thinking and human centricity
20 CMO Journal
CMOs: Accelerate
CMOs who lead RevOps initiatives will have
an advantage in setting the direction that an your impact
with Gartner
organization will take, regardless of whether
new functional roles, departments or reporting
structures are created.
for Marketers
Is Your Organization Ready?
RevOps requires a reimagining of commercial
functions and the supporting business processes,
which necessitates an investment of time, money
and resources to start. Consider the impact of
a RevOps initiative to workload or job functions
within your teams. Although the goal of better
alignment might be to reduce workload, increase
Lead your organization to stronger
efficiency or eliminate redundant responsibilities performance and sustainable business
in the long term, it may have the opposite effect
in the short term if the resources or competencies growth with actionable, objective insight,
are not available. advice and tools. Support includes:
Therefore, assess your team’s readiness for a
RevOps model, even if you are still defining and
developing your marketing operations function. A CMO Executive Partner
Indicators of readiness include an increased
appetite for cross-functional commercial
collaboration on analytics and shared systems,
as well as an appetite for goal alignment. CMO Peer Forums
Marketers struggling with low operational
maturity within their own function should
proceed with caution, and set realistic goals and
expectations for cross-functional engagement.
Personalized strategy workshops
Ideally, marketing operations should be at an
advanced stage of maturity with integrated
capabilities and clearly defined process, policy Benchmarking, diagnostics
and data governance before pursuing a RevOps and data-driven insights
initiative. Otherwise, marketing risks losing focus
on its self-improvement. Organizations with a low
or average level of marketing operations maturity Calls with experts including contract
facing pressure to support a RevOps model and document reviews
should emphasize to peer leaders the deeply
connected requirements of such an effort.
Take a crawl, walk, run approach with an initial
focus on improving marketing operations maturity.
Gartner for Marketers accelerates time
to impact by providing dedicated support,
tailored peer insights and practical tools.
gartner.com/en/marketing
© 2022 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates.
All rights reserved. CM_GBS_1669834
 To support increasingly complex customer
journeys, marketing teams seek technologies
that will support and improve their capabilities.
Marketers report that integration within the stack is
a top impediment to martech impact. Nearly 60%
of respondents to the 2020 Marketing Technology
Survey prefer to select such technologies
using an integrated suite approach, sourcing
interconnected products from a single vendor.1
Although the largest vendors have modestly
25% of such stacks on average while these same
martech vendors comprise nearly 40% for the
lowest-performing brands.2
Therefore, the pragmatic question for martech
teams isn’t about best-of-breed versus integrated
suite (although the latter approach has grown
in popularity). Considering the dynamic and
heterogeneous nature of the modern marketing
technology stack, the ability to connect disparate
systems and data is critical. Successfully navigate

3 Keys to Successful
improved the interconnection between their own
multiapplication suites, these same vendors can these waters by mastering three keys to martech
rarely meet every business need. Genius brands, integration (see Figure 1):

Marketing Technology
those with the highest-levels of digital marketing • Type
performance, have the largest number of products
in their stack. But, integrated suite vendors such • Technologies

Integration as Adobe, Oracle and Salesforce represent just • Team

by Benjamin Bloom Figure 1. The Three Keys to Martech Integration

Integration Type

• API • API • Connector

• SDK • SDK • Manual Process

An integrated martech stack can drive marketing

efficiency and success. CMOs must closely collaborate
with IT organizations to achieve desired outcomes.

Integration Technologies

• CDP • DMP • iPaaS • iSaaS

• MMH • TMS • Data
Prep

Integration Team

• Marketers
• IT

Source: Gartner

22 CMO Journal 1Q22 23

 First Key: Integration Type
Marketing teams must often go beyond what’s
in the box and leverage one or more of the
following mechanisms to accomplish system
connectivity, including:
• Prebuilt connectors — These packaged
integrations to support well-defined, recurring
data exchanges between two or more
endpoints. Martech vendors that provide APIs
will likely offer prebuilt connectors.
• APIs — A software specification that vendors
provide to developers to access specific
functions of and data within their solution. Most
modern marketing technologies have APIs.
Programming language support, standards,
capability scope, availability and access
methods vary, and API integrations will require
developer resources.
• SDKs — A toolkit that helps developers build
integrations or leverage features from other
applications within their own projects, such as
a native iOS or Android App. Commonly used
for integrating analytics, data collection or
advertising measurement tools.
• Tags — A snippet of code typically placed on a
website that performs functions like collecting
data, collecting consent or supplying third-party
functionality. Tools that support web and email
channels, digital advertising, and marketing
analytics rely on tags to collect and unify data.
• Batch file export/import — Automated or
manually initiated batch data transfers from
one system to another, often using secure
file-sharing protocols. Frequently used for
the transfer of large chunks of data between
systems (e.g., a scheduled import of offline
sales data into an email marketing platform).
Second Key: Integration Technologies
When individual tools in the martech stack don’t
supply sufficient integrations, marketing teams
may need to add specific integration technology.
Some martech tools may support marketing’s
needs, whereas horizontal integration platforms
— including iPaaS, iSaaS and data prep solutions
— tend to support enterprise wide integration
needs and can connect marketing technologies
to the broader business technology ecosystem
(see Figure 2).
The use of a horizontal integration platform
versus a marketing-specific solution depends
on different factors:
• Marketing’s overall relationship with internal
technical teams; spare developer cycles to
deliver custom integrations are typically few
and far between
• Priorities related to scalability, flexibility,
security and interdependency with other
business technologies and databases
• Functionality enabled through APIs
and other integration mechanisms
• The breadth of business capabilities
and use cases in need of support
Figure 3. Marketers’ Collaboration With, And Reliance on, IT Has Increased
Marketing Controls the Entire Process
IT Leads With Guidance From Marketing
Managed by an External Services Partner
Marketer Control
Third Key: Integration Team
Integration isn’t a one-time activity; it’s a
continuous partnership. Your needs, and
therefore your marketing and overall business
technology ecosystem as well as which parts of
the organization are engaged in the integration
process, will continue to evolve over time. Martech
teams are working more closely with IT than
they have in the past across eight core martech
activities, including roadmap management,
budget acquisition and technology selection. As
many as 60% of respondents in the 2020 Gartner
Marketing Technology Survey note that their
activities are conducted in the “collaboration zone”
between marketing and IT (see Figure 3).1
Marketing Leads With Guidance From IT
IT Controls the Entire Process
Other
Collaboration Zone IT Control

Creation of the Marketing

26% 34% 17% 16% 7% 1%
Figure 2. Choose Tools and Integration Types Based on Need Technology Roadmap
Management of the Marketing
22% 34% 20% 15% 8% 1%
Technology Roadmap
API
Acquisition of Budget for Marketing
28% 29% 23% 10% 6% 4%
Scope of Integration Capability

Technology
SDK MMH CDP iSaaS iPaaS Evaluation, Selection and Purchasing
18% 38% 22% 12% 9% 1%
of New Marketing Technology
Prebuilt DMP
Connector Configuration and Deployment of
15% 27% 29% 19% 8% 1%
New Marketing Technology
Tag Management
Tag System Integration of Disparate Marketing
16% 27% 33% 16% 8% 1%
Technologies and Databases
Data Prep and Management of the Current Suite of
Batch Integration 18% 33% 23% 16% 9% 1%
Marketing Technology

Manual Job Driving Adoption and Utilization 24% 31% 21% 12% 10% 1%

Front-Office
Marketing Only Enterprisewide 0% 50% 100%
(Marketing, Sales, Service)
n = 387 marketing technology leaders
Scope of Data Usage Q: Which group controls each of the following marketing technology activities?
Source: Gartner Source: Gartner 2020 Marketing Technology Survey

24 CMO Journal 1Q22 25

 Gartner for Marketers

IT often owns specific digital transformation

Achieve your
goals faster.
tasks that ultimately impact the customer. CMOs
should focus on obtaining the right resources
that help deliver transformation rather than
focus on whose team the resources report into.
A collaborative partnership with IT, vendors and
external service providers is critical to meeting
customer expectations.
Engage your IT team and external partners early to
establish a collaborative governance approach, but Navigate a path to success with expert guidance and
empower marketing technology users to perform
their own integrations where it makes sense.
practical tools focused on your most critical priorities.
1
2020 Gartner Marketing Technology Survey: The
purpose of this study was to understand how marketers
are investing in, deploying and getting value out of
marketing technology. The research was conducted
online from July through September 2020, among 387
respondents in the U.S. (54%), Canada (3%), France (6%),
Germany (8%) and the U.K. (29%). Respondents were
required to be involved in decisions related to their
company’s marketing technology strategy. Eighty-five
percent of the respondents came from organizations
with $1 billion or more in annual revenue. The
respondents came from a variety of industries: financial
services (46 respondents), high tech (51 respondents),
manufacturing (63 respondents), consumer products
(27 respondents), media (40 respondents), retail (46
respondents), healthcare providers (48 respondents), IT
and business services (44 respondents), and travel and
hospitality (22 respondents).
Note: The survey was developed collaboratively by a
team of Gartner analysts and Gartner’s Research Data,
Analytics and Tools team.
Disclaimer: Results of this survey do not represent
global findings or the market as a whole, but do reflect
the sentiments of the respondents and companies
surveyed.

Learn how Gartner for Marketers can help you

and your team excel and get results.
Connect with us

© 2022 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. CM_GBS_1691850
26 CMO Journal 1Q22 27
 Fabio Biasella CMO, Travis Credit Union

Fabio leads the marketing organization’s internal and external

The Marketing and

communication, branding and strategy research and development.
Prior to joining TCU, he was vice president and senior strategist for a
national credit union marketing research and analytics company. He

IT Relationship: An
has over 30 years of combined experience across numerous roles in
retail financial services, including retail and private banking.

Interview With Travis You’ve been able to form a strong partnership We needed to move away from the “heroic”

Credit Union’s CMO with IT over the past few years, what has that
process been like?
mindset of plumber or electrician problem solving.
It’s all about getting people to understand how

Fabio Biasella
by Michael Giblin
Partnering with IT has emerged as a critical
imperative for CMOs and their teams. In a
conversation with fellow chief marketing executives
and Gartner experts, Fabio Biasella, CMO at Travis
Credit Union, discussed the steps his team has
taken to strengthen the marketing-IT relationship.
It’s been slow and steady progress. How can we
meet the needs of an increasingly financially
unwell member base that is increasingly using
more digital banking tools? At TCU, it’s a
partnership; IT and marketing complement each
other. IT is involved in everything the company is
doing, while marketing is less broadly embedded,
but it has the deepest understanding of the
member and brings the outside-in perspective.
We’re on a multiyear journey with the CIO to get
marketing closer to the central strategy of the
business. This is the story of how we’re refocusing
and realigning the organization to strengthen
our partnership to increase our focus on the
member experience.
That sounds like a major undertaking. Where
does a multiyear process like that start?
It starts with a mutual focus on the business
objectives, a willingness to learn and an open
exchange of ideas — which we think of as beacons.
Marketing is way out there in the marketplace,
looking at the forces in play, designing strategy for
both marketing and for the overall organization,
shining that beacon back into the rest of the
organization. We discovered that some areas had a
lack of understanding on how a credit union creates
value for its members, and thus drives value for the
business. We started focusing on that.
Step 1: We created an understanding of how
our organization works. Then we took that
understanding to the parts of business that
are more isolated from members. Doing that
successfully opens the door to change processes
and think about budgeting differently.
the business drives value. TCU’s results are already
strong, but this is key to taking performance to the
next level. We unify around the higher purpose of
reaching that next level. It takes a lot of meetings,
work interactions and reinforcement by leaders to
get us there.
I love the idea of leveraging how close
marketing is to customers to bring perspective
to the rest of the business on what customers
are truly getting value from. Do you have any
guidance on actually converting that change in
perspective to tangible changes in prioritization
of projects and resources?
It’s happened in fits and starts, and the journey
continues. One key change has been developing
a centralized criteria for proving the business
case of proposed projects. Our employees
are very good at their roles, they just needed
someone to provide a broader perspective. For
example, our business product owner of CRM
wanted the deepest possible understanding of
the business drivers and performance so he could
leverage the CRM system in new ways.
There is a drive to redefine and expand what
“business as usual” means. All functions have
begun the difficult journey of prioritizing around
member demand and rethinking their business-
as-usual approach. We’d thought of our core
business as running on its own while we focused
on things around the edges, when in fact that
core is what drives most of our company value.
We needed to move away from
the "heroic" mindset of plumber
or electrician problem solving.

28 CMO Journal 1Q22 29

 Catch our most
That sounds like a major shift in mindset and
in process. What were some of the biggest
challenges to implementing these changes?
popular webinars
for marketing
There are many and we’re still working on
them: Upskilling and aligning skills, leadership
approaches and communications styles are

leaders
our biggest challenge. Training our people to
have the ability to deal with uncertainty with
confidence. Making interpersonal connections
between people in Marketing and IT despite
having different styles and skill sets.
For whatever direction we want to take, (we’re
now focusing these different perspectives on
common issues), how do our current capabilities
line up and need to evolve, then what additional
capabilities are needed to help us continue to
Available on demand
mature? Thinking this way has sharpened the
discussion by forcing people to prioritize and
to focus on how they can do what they’ve been Gartner State of Digital Take the Lead on
doing better. Commerce Survey: Revenue Operations
We hear sometimes from clients that Top 5 Findings for (RevOps) to Ignite
relationships can be challenged given the Marketing Leaders Growth
competition for limited resources. What has
been your experience? Watch Now Watch Now
No, that has not been our experience at all.
Once you’ve got everyone aligned on what drives
member and business value, and excited about
the common goal of maximizing that value, The Gartner Top The Top U.S Consumer
most of that competitive mindset and behavior Marketing Predictions and Cultural Trends
resolves itself.
for 2022 and Beyond for 2022

Watch Now Watch Now

The Gartner CMO Panel Discussion:

Leadership Vision Develop Next Level
for 2022: 3 Key Personas to Improve
Trends CX and Marketing
Watch Now Watch Now

© 2022 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates.

All rights reserved. CM_GBS_1669834
30 CMO Journal 1Q22 31