It’s that time of year—when we examine what’s top of mind for B2C CMOs in the US as they plan for the upcoming year. 2026 brings a renewed focus on CX and customer loyalty while AI hype starts to shape into real AI capabilities. Forrester’s Q3 B2C Marketing CMO Pulse Survey, 2025 provided a list of 18 initiatives and we asked respondents (128 US B2C marketing executives) to select up to three. The top five most commonly selected were:

1. Improve our customer experience.
It’s nice to see customer experience in the number one spot as, last year, it didn’t even make it into the top five. The fact remains that improving CX when also aligning to BX (brand experience) is good for business! It increases revenue through new and repeat customers and decreases expenses by reducing churn. But don’t just stop there: Drive business growth by improving your overall brand and customer interactions with insight into your company’s total experience score. Attend: Forrester’s CX Summit North America 2026

2. Advance our generative AI capabilities.
Although it dropped down a spot since last year, AI still is (and should be) a top priority for CMOs. But many marketers are mired in sifting through AI hype versus reality, and most are focused on driving efficiencies with AI rather than driving effectiveness. Successful AI integration requires data readiness, cultural alignment, and continuous learning across marketing functions. And it all starts with the CMO’s leadership. Read: Create An Agency Operating Model Designed For Effectiveness

3. Mature how we measure marketing effectiveness.
Marketing measurement is a staple of our annual top initiatives list, and this year is no different. In fact, it remained in the exact same spot (#3) as last year’s list. While its importance hasn’t changed, the measurement landscape has. But 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 KPIs. Read: Must-Have Data For Marketing Measurement

4. Deploy or update our loyalty platform.
CMOs portend 2025’s economic volatility will get even worse in 2026. This means more pain for price-conscious consumers—putting brand loyalty to the test. Just over a third (37%) of US online adults indicate willingness to pay a higher price for a product from a brand they love versus 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. Read: How To Modernize Your Loyalty Program

5. Increase/optimize marketing personalization use cases.
Here’s another familiar top five initiative, dropping from last year’s number four spot. Organizations often misunderstand the concept of consumer personalization—believing they must progress to “hyper-personalization” as a final state. In reality, consumers care about relevance and value. Start by establishing an organization-wide personalization vision—grounded in customer needs, positive outcomes, and a mutual exchange of value before tackling personalization execution. Read: Forrester’s Essential Research For Approaching Consumer Personalization

Brand Awareness And Creator Marketing Are Notable “Top Five” Absences

In comparing 2026 top planned initiatives to our 2025 list, two things stand out. First, Increasing brand awareness moved from the number five spot in 2025 to the middle of the pack for 2026. Second (and more notably), invest more in creator/influencer marketing dropped from the number two spot in 2025 to number sixteen (yep, that’s third to last). Why the change?

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. And many companies have already established their creator marketing investments. Case in point: Unilever is increasing its influencer marketing spend “twentyfold.”

CMOs At High Growth Companies Prioritize Innovation For 2026

We additionally segmented this dataset by respondents who indicated their year-over-year growth rate was above 10% (high growth) versus under 10% (low growth). We found:

  • High Growth Companies: Prioritize innovation (generative AI, personalization, brand evolution), external partnerships (agency selection), and refining strategic operations (communications/media strategy).
  • Low Growth Companies: Focus on customer retention, foundational marketing improvements (loyalty platforms, Martech), and tactical strategies like performance marketing and consumer insights.

Forrester clients: Let’s chat more about the data via a Forrester guidance session.