Better CX Is the Top CMO Priority
Improving customer experience topped the list of 2026 initiatives for chief marketing officers, according to a new report from Forrester Research.
“It’s nice to see customer experience in the No. 1 spot as, last year, it didn’t even make it into the top five,” says Forrester vice president and research director Mike Proulx. “The fact remains that improving CX when also aligning to [brand experience] is good for business. It increases revenue through new and repeat customers and decreases expenses by reducing churn.”
No. 2 on the list was advancing generative artificial intelligence, which occupied the top spot on the 2025 list. “Many marketers are mired in sifting through AI hype vs. reality, and most are focused on driving efficiencies with AI rather than driving effectiveness,” Proulx says. “Successful AI integration requires data readiness, cultural alignment, and continuous learning across marketing functions. And it all starts with the CMO’s leadership.”
The third most popular choice among CMOs, just as it was in 2025, was maturing how they measure marketing effectiveness.
“While its importance hasn’t changed, the measurement landscape has,” Proulx says. “Despite some improvements, advanced solutions are only as good as the data that feeds them. Start with a comprehensive data strategy that prioritizes data quality over quantity, focusing on alignment with specific marketing [key performance indicators].”
The next most important priority for CMOs in 2026 is deploying or updating their loyalty platforms.
“CMOs portend that 2025’s economic volatility will get even worse in 2026,” Proulx states. “This means more pain for price-conscious consumers, putting brand loyalty to the test. Just over a third (37 percent) of U.S. online adults indicate willingness to pay a higher price for a product from a brand they love vs. a very similar product from a different brand at a lower price. For the rest, brand loyalty requires a diversified approach to motivate incremental customer behaviors.”
In earlier research Forrester found that 77 percent of B2C marketing decision makers say that their organizations have customer loyalty programs. But not all programs have been able to turn customers into lifetime loyalists while driving profits.
Forrester in 2024 found that 37 percent of U.S. online adults agreed that loyalty programs all feel the same.
“Traditional loyalty program engagement strategies reliant on transactional activities run the risk of limited differentiation and increased member apathy,” the research firm says.
Fifth on the 2026 list is increasing or optimizing marketing personalization, which was fourth on the 2025 list.
“Organizations often misunderstand the concept of consumer personalization, believing that they must progress to hyper-personalization as a final state,” Proulx explains. “In reality, consumers care about relevance and value.”
He recommends starting by establishing an organization-wide personalization vision grounded in customer needs, positive outcomes, and a mutual exchange of value before tackling personalization.
Earlier Forrester research found that most (96 percent) of senior B2C marketing and advertising decision makers say that consumer personalization initiatives were important to their organizations.
Yet just more than half (53 percent) of U.S. online adults today like when companies personalize interactions.
Dropping off the top five list were increasing brand awareness (which was No. 5 in 2025) and investing more in creator/influencer marketing (which was No. 2 last year but ranked 16th on the list for 2026).
“CMOs must shore up the core in 2026 in what will prove to be an even more volatile year. It’s not that brand awareness or creator marketing aren’t important marketing initiatives, but rather the initiatives that topped our 2026 list are either foundational marketing practices or must-address enablers, like AI,” Proulx explains.