Hallam’s CMO Playbook 2026

Expectations on revenue and pipeline are sky high. Website traffic is down. Content is underperforming. And it costs more than ever to acquire a customer.

Marketing leaders are absorbing the human cost of this, taking the pressure from the board, trying to do more with less, and doing their best not to pass it on to their teams. No wonder CMO tenures are the shortest in the C-suite.

Today, 89% of buyers use LLMs to research, compare vendors, and build shortlists before they ever speak to anyone. The buyer simply does not need you to educate them anymore. And with AI Overviews absorbing the clicks, organic traffic is declining at the same time. The natural response has been to shift budgets into advertising.

The new ‘playbook’ for CMOs includes the following:

#1 Differentiation through ‘Blue Ocean’ strategy

#2 Owning your space in LLMs

#3 Building Fame

#4 Rebuilding measurement

Download the full playbook today.