It's 2025. Stop playing defense as a CMO

Marketing is a venture of practical optimism, but the last three years have mostly been a practical nightmare for leaders in this field: tenureships kept shrinking, opportunities were scarce, and expectations were unrealistic.

The rise of AI also brings with it the perception that we’re all going to be replaced and that AI “can hyper personalize every touchpoint. It tests more, it never sleeps, and it doesn’t waste my time with excuses”.

I was always a company-friendly employee. And I adapted to said challenges by becoming too company friendly, at the expense of myself: adhering to bad business decisions because of no or bad date, first to cut budgets, first to fire. If you did that as well, I want to share with you how I changed my personal playbook.

Timing is important. My biased opinion is that there is more room for optimism. VCs reshifted their focus from efficiency – a temporary compromise for them – and now again chase only hyper growth.

There are more job postings in the groups I’m in. And my conclusion is that we can and should stop playing defense only, and start actually doing marketing.

Take products to markets. Make users do something beneficial for the company, and even – heaven forbid – make your brand more known and more memorable.

Have some fun; smile again; take some risks.

Here goes:

Founders: Make sure you know what you’re supposed to do

Founders, especially in the tech startup world, often have a different circle of reference than marketers. They compare themselves to other successful founders and companies, even if those companies are in completely different industries or stages of growth.

This can lead to unrealistic expectations for their own marketing teams. They may expect the same results as a much larger company with a much bigger budget, or they may expect to see results overnight.

These unrealistic expectations can put a lot of pressure on CMOs. At best, you may feel like you’re constantly being compared to your peers at other companies. At worst – you don’t even know it’s happening.

This can lead to a focus on short-term results at the expense of long-term growth. It can also lead to a feeling of being set up for failure, as the CMO may not be given the resources or time they need to achieve the desired results.

Three things you must do RIGHT NOW:

• Make sure you know what a win looks like, and deliver that, at least in part. Make sure that win is not just the “quick, measurable wins” such as subscriptions (b2c) or leads (b2b) – we will get to those in a minute, but also do this:
• Tie targets to budgets to speed: Budget is power. Budget is speed. Make sure you're involved when it's being decided. Ensure they feel comfortable discussing it with you and understand the impact that cost-cutting will have on annual targets. Yes, you can manage with lower budgets for 3-6 months, and that's why the focus will be there. It buys founders time. But you don't have that time: annual targets often live or die in high correlation with the budget.
• Broaden your company’s focus: Marketing is more than just messaging and lead generation. It's about making visible things happen, creating a strong brand, and fostering a culture of innovation.

Management level: claim your territory

The biggest single common misconception you will be facing from your peers is that marketing is easy to do and easy to measure. And if we don't do that, then we're not doing it right.

Business leaders, especially in the tech startup world, often think that marketing is easily measurable and that attribution has already been solved. They put immense pressure on marketing leaders to deliver quick and measurable wins, focusing solely on short-term results like lead generation “that we can see in our CRM”.

Even if you’re excellent at delivering results, if you only focus on short-term gains for sales, you're replaceable. AI can already do a lot of what we do, especially when it comes to messaging, visuals, and optimization.

So instead, I also venture into areas that other teams can’t:

• Speed. Marketing typically moves faster than other departments and deals better with the inherent chaos. Play to that strength. Ask other departments to move fast. Connect missing targets to missed deadlines and speed. When others are slowing you down, you are in a better position for yourself and your department.
• Brand. Take the conversation to the good old and results-proven brand thing. As someone who comes from performance, having brand conversations wasn't second nature for me. But having practiced it for a while now, whenever I hear someone downplaying brand activities, I get in their faces and ask them who they would take a call from, and show them this image:

If they don’t get this, I wonder what else they’re missing in their funnel analysis.

• Hedge risks. A moment of reflection here: this is riskier, so know the line between disagreeing and being confrontational. Choose your battles wisely – but win the ones you go into. They will make you happier and can also give you political capital.

Don’t let other people lead the marketing conversation

I love talking numbers – it’s my favorite conversation. The CRO is there. Sales are there. Product are there. All with opinions. All with suggestions. All asking “how can we sell more subscriptions/get more and better leads”.

Change the conversation: instead of focusing on short-term metrics, talk about the short AND the long – current and future revenue (and other business goals). Remind them that if their teams are struggling now, they will struggle twice as hard if your team doesn't work on better future activities.

Challenge them with the notion that the more data we have, the smaller the opportunity. We need to focus on both optimizing existing ones AND creating new opportunities at the same time. Doing each is difficult, so doing both is even more so. Make sure they understand that. 

• Avoid being the only one measured for every action, dollar, or hire. Compare yourself often with data and benchmarks to other departments. When they ask you “how do you even measure what our LinkedIn team does if it’s not leads” you reply with “how do you even measure what our PMs do with a feature score/adoption rate so low”. Don’t remain quiet when others are throwing your prospects of success under the bus. You’re safer in your role as part of the pack.
• Celebrate your team – and theirs. On the flip side, when things go well, put your face on the success, but complement other leaders. You’re safer in your role as part of the pack.
• Balance things. As you can see – my philosophy has shifted into being a bit more confrontational. I try to balance it by investing a lot of time in building relationships with other team members, especially product and sales. These relationships will be crucial when you need to get things done quickly.

Wrapping up

You’re in marketing. Label things clearly and properly. Make your statements easy to remember and to repeat. This will grow your reputation and your impact. As you probably noticed, my take on the “short and long” is to talk about marketing as a venture of practical optimism.

I show practical results – subscriptions – but I also show optimism: small ventures that are growing, giving people a glimpse of what can be. Find your own catch phrases. Be smart about them.

Connect with me on LinkedIn and let’s blame everything on product and sales!

Want more of Asaf's insights? Why not check out his full podcast conversation with Michal Lasman right here?