In B2B, fiscal year (FY) plans often begin with revenue targets from finance that are likely set on past growth rates or investor expectations. Those numbers set the tone— but rarely reflect the reality of marketing execution.
Marketing leaders are then asked to deliver without the resources, processes, or structures to support them. The problem isn’t the growth target; it’s the operating model. Without the right balance of people, programs, and technology, even the best strategy stalls.
The solution is to ground your FY plan in how marketing really works— by linking planning to growth priorities, data to conversion visibility, and execution to efficient campaign orchestration.
Hybrid Factors to Consider
This is where hybrid operating models come in. At 2X, we help enterprise teams decide what stays in-house, what moves to shared or offshore hubs, and what can be automated with AI. The result is an operating model that connects strategy to execution while lowering cost and scaling output.
Whether you’re setting next year’s priorities or realizing you need to course-correct midstream, here’s where to focus.
Planning: Align Goals to Growth Priorities
Revenue targets only matter if they translate into a plan that reflects where—and how—the business plans to grow: net-new acquisition, expansion within the base, or a balance of both. Each requires a different pipeline strategy, campaign mix, and resource model. For example, you may need to:
- Define the pipeline and bookings mix to support growth goals
- Balance investments between new logo acquisition and expansion
- Translate corporate priorities into tactical swimlanes and campaign plans
When planning starts with financial strategy and cascades into execution, marketing becomes a growth driver, not a cost center.
Data: Create Full-funnel Visibility to Improve Conversion
Performance depends on visibility. Marketing needs more than attribution— it needs a revenue operations capability that measures opportunities and buying groups across the funnel.
That requires disciplined data practices: audits, hygiene, and rationalizing underused tech. Clean, centralized data eliminates blind spots and aligns marketing, RevOps, and sales around a single source of truth. You need infrastructure that tracks the full journey and can:
- Centralize funnel data into one system
- Measure at the opportunity and buying-group level
- Audit tech and remove redundancy
- Use AI to identify conversion bottlenecks and forecast pipeline gaps
With full-funnel data, marketing can see where conversion breaks down, prove what drives bookings, and invest where it matters most.
Execution: Centralize Campaign Delivery to Lower CAC
Even the best plan and cleanest data will fail without an execution engine built to scale. That means a centralized intake and campaign hub connecting strategy, creative, content, media, and operations.
Execution doesn’t fail from lack of effort; it fails from lack of orchestration. The right model reduces duplication, shortens cycle times, and lowers Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) while keeping campaigns tied to growth goals. You want a model that will:
- Centralize campaign intake and orchestration
- Align with finance, sales, and RevOps so campaigns tie to revenue outcomes
- Apply AI to streamline tasks like asset versioning, QA, and routing
When execution is orchestrated, marketing delivers more output at lower cost without sacrificing quality.
What Happens When You Don’t Align?
When planning, data, and execution aren’t connected, misalignment shows up fast, and the consequences land squarely on the CMO:
- Campaigns misfire when the focus tilts toward pipeline instead of balanced pipeline and bookings growth.
- Budgets get wasted when conversion gaps stay hidden, making it harder to defend spend to finance.
- CAC rises as duplication and inefficiency inflate costs.
- Customers see a fragmented brand, eroding external trust and internal credibility.
Marketing must now align with finance, and that starts with knowing the numbers.
What If You’re Already Off Track?
You don’t need to start over. Reorient the organization around three focus areas that tie directly to 2026 growth goals:
- Planning to rebalance pipeline and bookings mix so marketing is visibly tied to growth priorities
- Data to improve funnel conversion with visibility and cleaner handoffs, turning more pipeline into revenue without added budget
- Execution to lower CAC by orchestrating campaigns through a hub and applying AI to repeatable tasks, proving efficiency gains to finance
Even incremental progress in these three interconnected areas can help teams pivot fast, realign and recalibrate, and defend marketing’s contribution to get back on track.
Fiscal year planning isn’t about producing a plan-on-a-page. It’s about anchoring the operating model to financial outcomes. Marketing leaders who align planning with growth priorities, data with visibility, and execution with efficiency can stop chasing numbers—and start driving impact.
Barbie Mattie is currently Sr. Principal Marketing Strategy Consultant at 2X. Where she helps clients modernize their operating models, execute precision ABX and campaign strategies, and harness analytics to optimize performance. She’s a senior B2B marketing strategist and advisor with over two decades of experience helping CMOs and marketing leaders align strategy, data, and operations to drive measurable growth. Barbie has advised global enterprises on marketing transformation and go-to-market alignment in her previous roles at Iron Horse and Forrester (formerly SiriusDecisions).
