By Lisa Heay, Vice President of Business Operations at Heinz Marketing
If you’re a CMO deep in 2026 planning, you’re juggling more than ever: shifting buyer behavior, rising expectations for proof, tightening budgets, AI transformation, and the constant push to do more with the same (or less).
Over the last several months, our team has been creating resources specifically to make that process easier, clearer, and more strategic for marketing leaders who need to balance both immediate impact and long-term growth.
This roundup pulls all of that guidance into one place. Whether you’re refining your budget, pressure-testing your GTM strategy, auditing funnel performance, incorporating AI responsibly, or aligning more closely with sales and RevOps, you’ll find actionable tools and insights to help you enter 2026 with confidence and a plan that’s built to perform.
2026 planning resources for CMOs
A Practical AI Playbook for 2026 Planning: Where to Lean In—and Where to Tread Cautiously by Maria Geokezas
AI can be a strong support for 2026 planning by speeding up analysis, improving targeting and forecasting, and uncovering buyer insights—but it won’t rescue a weak strategy. The biggest gains come when teams use AI to scale work and spot patterns while people handle judgment, context, and decision-making.
It’s also important to be cautious about data quality, bias, and over-automation, since AI works best as a partner to experienced marketers, not a replacement.
Why Q4 Is the Perfect Time to Audit Your Funnel Before the New Year Rush by Karla Sanders
Q4 is a great time to step back and really check how your funnel performed over the whole year so you can fix friction points before the new year hits. You should dig into handoffs, conversion rates, content effectiveness, and your actual ICP using real data, then bring sales, marketing, and RevOps together to diagnose issues.
Finally, turn what you find into a 90-day action plan with immediate, mid-term, and longer-term fixes so you start next year stronger.
11 Ways to Set Your Marketing Automation Platform up for Success in the New Year by Lisa Heay
At the start of a new year, marketers should clean up and reorganize their marketing automation platform by archiving outdated programs, merging duplicate records, and establishing a clean folder structure. Also, audit your database, remove stale contacts and append missing data, and review your nurture content to ensure it aligns with current goals.
It’s important to revisit your lead-scoring model, get sales feedback on lead quality, and update user permissions in the system. Finally, keep up to date with evolving data privacy laws and align your reporting to new KPIs for the upcoming year.
Closing the Proof-to-Performance Gap: What 2026 GTM Leaders Must Prioritize Now by Sarah Threet
To win in 2026, GTM teams need to stop assuming that more activity automatically drives revenue and instead align around shared goals and confidence-building with buyers. Today’s buyers are focused on reducing risk, which means teams must prioritize trust, proof, and influence in the “dark funnel” (like peer conversations and references) rather than just pushing pitches.
A key success metric now is how quickly teams can deliver relevant proof to buyers, and high performers are reorganizing planning, customer feedback, mid-funnel proof, enablement, and operations to make trust a repeatable part of their revenue engine.
This article highlights two recent events, now on demand:
- Inside the 2026 GTM Benchmark Report: New Data on the Proof-to-Performance Gap
- Scaling Smarter in 2026: Fireside Insights for GTM Leaders
Master Your 2026 Marketing Budget: Essential Steps for Planning Ahead by Lisa Heay
This updated 2026 edition of Master Your Marketing Budget: Essential Steps for Planning Ahead helps marketing leaders build strategic, flexible budgets that align with business goals and evolving market realities. It outlines a step-by-step process, from reviewing past performance to forecasting trends, defining budget categories, and aligning stakeholders, while incorporating 2026 priorities like AI-driven operations, first-party data strategies, and RevOps alignment.
The post emphasizes agility, scenario-based planning, and measurable ROI to ensure marketing investments remain efficient, compliant, and adaptable throughout the year.
Planning Your GTM Testing Strategy for 2026: From Hypothesis to Scalable Growth by Winfield Dean-Salyards
As B2B teams plan for 2026, the focus is shifting from alignment to validation. This blog explores how to design a GTM testing strategy that helps organizations move faster and make smarter decisions. You’ll learn how to develop clear market hypotheses, design efficient tests that generate actionable signal, and build a feedback loop that turns insights into scalable strategy.
By adopting a repeatable “test, learn, and apply” framework, GTM leaders can replace guesswork with evidence. and turn learning velocity into their biggest competitive advantage.
Why Orchestration Debt Belongs in Your 2026 Marketing Plan by Sarah Threet
This blog explores orchestration debt in B2B marketing: what it is, how it slows execution, and why it belongs in your 2026 GTM plan. Learn to spot hidden inefficiencies, prevent revenue leakage, and build a roadmap to scale with less friction.
From Search to Selection: How to Find a Marketing Agency That Fits Your Needs by Lisa Heay
Choosing a marketing agency can feel overwhelming. This guide walks you through where to start, what to ask, and how to evaluate fit so you can confidently select the partner that will help you achieve your marketing goals.
A couple oldies, but still relevant!
This content was posted around this time last year, but the heart of the message still rings true.
Orchestrating Your Budget for Demand Gen Success: A Fiscal Year Planning Guide by Maria Geokezas
Marketing teams: it’s time to plan your 2025 budgets! Follow the 7 steps to create and manage a well-orchestrated marketing budget. Come back to these steps to optimize for flexibility year-round, track metrics, and revisit your budget as needed for holistic, data-driven success.
2025 Content Strategy Starts Here: December Planning Checklist by Brittany Lieu
As 2024 comes to a close, it’s time to prepare for a successful 2025. Set clear, actionable goals, refine your content processes, and align your teams to build a strategy that drives real impact and supports business growth throughout the year.
Future-Proofing Your 2025: KPIs and Metrics to Guide Your B2B Planning by Karla Sanders
This blog outlines key performance indicators (KPIs) that B2B sales and marketing teams should prioritize for effective planning in 2025, emphasizing a balanced scorecard approach to enhance collaboration and transparency. It also addresses common pitfalls and provides actionable recommendations to optimize performance and drive sustainable growth.
More comprehensive guidance
For CMOs and GTM leaders looking for more in-depth, actionable guidance, here are some longer-form resources that take a deeper dive, providing comprehensive frameworks, worksheets, and playbooks to help you build predictable pipeline, master GTM orchestration, and streamline marketing operations.
Workbook: A Playbook for Building Predictable Pipeline
In today’s highly competitive and saturated market, achieving consistent sales results and sustainable revenue growth is a common struggle. Many companies face challenges due to short-term marketing plans, poor quality leads, and a lack of foundation for success. Our workbook addresses these fundamental gaps by providing insights into building a predictable, reliable pipeline.
Guide: Mastering Go-To-Market Orchestration
Is your GTM strategy working in sync? Many B2B organizations face challenges like unclear accountability, fragmented processes, and inefficient collaboration that slows down growth potential.
Guide: A CMO’s Guide to Marketing Orchestration
Marketing Orchestration as a concept has been underserved for years, with unattended orchestration wreaking havoc on deadlines and content quality, until now. In this guide, we’ll provide actionable examples, frameworks, and a copy of our Marketing Orchestration scorecard to help you streamline your internal processes and improve efficiency.
For more marketing resources, check out our Knowledge Hub.
Wrapping it up
As you finalize your 2026 plans, we hope this collection gives you the clarity, structure, and inspiration to move into the new year with confidence. The landscape is shifting quickly, but with the right insights, aligned teams, and a strong operational foundation, CMOs can turn uncertainty into momentum. If you’re looking for support refining your strategy or applying any of these frameworks, our team is always here to help.
Here’s to a smarter, more resilient 2026!
Want to chat? Email us for a free brainstorm session!
The post Building Proof, Precision & Performance: 2026 Planning Roundup for CMOs appeared first on Heinz Marketing.
