“What do you mean AI can’t fix everything?” This conversation with a marketing executive last month gave me the impetus to create this 2025 marketing executive playbook.
As I delved into data and interviewed executives across industries, I discovered something surprising: While 56% of marketing leaders believe marketing has changed more in the last three years than in the previous 50 years, the most successful leaders follow a lot more nuanced approach than I expected.
To understand where marketing is headed, HubSpot surveyed 724 marketing leaders at director level and above in key markets, including:
- The USA (27.49%),
- Great Britain (18.78%),
- Netherlands (11.74%) and
- Japan (10.91%).
To bring these insights to life, I then spoke with marketing leaders at companies like Wrike, Atlassian, Sendoso, and others about how they are addressing these challenges in their organizations.
Our research shows three clear priorities for 2025:
- Increase in sales and revenue (20%).
- Deepening customer understanding (16%).
- Increase in brand awareness (16%).
What fascinated me most in my conversations with marketing executives was how these priorities often lead to productive tensions, pushing leaders to find creative solutions that balance innovation with proven fundamentals.
Let’s take a look at what’s working now and what’s next, with practical insights from both our research leaders and real-world marketing leaders.
Table of contents
Balancing Growth and Brand: A New Playbook for 2025
Remember when marketing teams had to choose between driving immediate sales and building long-term brand equity? This boundary is blurring.
Our research shows that marketing leaders reject this false dichotomy.
While 20% prioritize increasing sales and revenue as their top goalthere is also a strong emphasis on deeper customer understanding (16%) And Brand awareness (16%).
These are not either/or decisions – many executives reported pursuing multiple strategic priorities simultaneously.
Sarah ReeceDirector of Demand Generation at Orum, a sales acceleration platform, captures this shift perfectly.
“My philosophy is that brand is demand and every touchpoint is a brand touchpoint,” she explains.
“From our social media presence to our website to the outbound activities of our sales team, we build a brand reputation that creates trust, builds affinity and increases preference so that people default to Orum when they come to market .”
And the numbers support this integrated approach. “We actually saw a fairly immediate impact on our demand generation goals when we took decisive actions to elevate the brand,” shares Reece.
“Direct and organic web traffic increased, social reach increased, pipeline and revenue grew, and business velocity also increased… If anything, the growth has been exponential and has continued to accelerate with every major brand moment we launch .”
With this foundation of balanced priorities, let’s take a look at how marketing leaders are using AI and automation to effectively achieve these goals.
How marketing managers approach AI and automation
Marketing leaders are moving from the “AI will handle everything” mindset to a more strategic approach. Our research shows that marketing leaders are prioritizing three key AI initiatives for 2025:
- Using AI to create multimodal campaigns (24%).
- Use of AI agents for end-to-end marketing automation (22%).
- Implementation of AI-powered reporting tools for ROI assessment (21%).
Find the right balance
What fascinates me most about these numbers is not only the high adoption rates, but also the way managers thoughtfully integrate AI into existing workflows.
Christine RoystonChief Marketing Officer at Wrikea workflow management platform, has observed this development first hand.
“We have certainly seen a lot of changes in the last three years with the rise, popularity and accessibility of AI,” she explains.
“The most dramatic change I have seen is an increasing shift towards efficient growth through data-driven decision making.”
According to Wrike Effective work report 2024More than 80% of business leaders cite efficiency as their main focus in maintaining competitiveness.
Royston and her team are responding by investing heavily in AI-powered predictive analytics.
From theory to practice
While many marketing teams are still experimenting with AI, some are already seeing tangible benefits. At Goldcasta B2B video platform, CEO Palash Soni sees AI transforming how content is created and distributed.
“The fundamentals of what makes a B2B brand successful have not changed,” he explains.
“High-quality thought leadership, differentiated PoV, outstanding, attention-grabbing content, and a bulletproof base of operations have always won and will continue to win.” Making these things scalable is where AI comes into play for top brands.”
Ashley FausHead of Lifecycle Marketing Atlassian – a software company for collaboration and productivity in the workplace – takes a targeted approach with RovoAtlassian’s AI-powered tool.
“We’ve been working on one with that Content reviewBrainstorm topics and even create one custom agent to add context to some of the messaging for our products,” explains Faus.
Her team plans to expand these capabilities: “I expect us to create more agents to help analyze asset and channel performance, fill gaps in our content strategy, and personalize the journey for different personas .”
At Orum, Sarah Reece has found practical applications in numerous roles.
“AI in project management has been extremely helpful in creating project boards, automating status updates, and keeping work moving,” she explains.
“We also use AI intensively for editing and producing videos and podcasts. AI has made everything related to editing video and audio, selecting clips for social networks and transcribing for social posts, captions and content repurposing a breeze.”
Balance between AI and human creativity
What struck me most in my conversations with leaders was their emphasis on maintaining human control.
Kacie JenkinsSenior Vice President Marketing Sendosoa platform for corporate gifts and marketing engagement, gets to the point:
“Human contact and thoughtful personalization are at the heart of everything we do at Sendoso, because they are at the heart of good marketing. We believe AI is an amazing opportunity to improve human workflows, but it needs a human at the helm and oversight is critical.”
Jenkins’ team found success by focusing on using AI to enhance human capabilities rather than replace them:
“We use AI for research to target our marketing efforts more effectively, eliminating mundane, manual work and delivering the right personalized gift and message to the right person at the right time across the entire customer journey.”
As AI adoption accelerates, marketing managers emphasize the importance of thoughtful implementation. Wrike’s Royston advocates for balance.
“While we welcome the implementation of AI as it offers more opportunities for impactful work and collaboration,” she explains, “human creativity and empathy are irreplaceable when it comes to telling compelling stories, developing innovative strategies, and creating authentic customer relationships support financially.”
This balanced AI approach represents one of the biggest challenges for marketing leaders in 2025: scaling personalization without losing authenticity. Let’s look at how the most successful leaders overcome this challenge.
Pro tip: Identify areas where AI can handle routine tasks so your team can focus on strategic thinking and creative development.
How marketing managers scale personalization
The numbers from our research tell a compelling story about personalization in 2025:
- 90% of marketing leaders provide somewhat or very personalized experiences.
- 86% report that personalization moderately or significantly increases sales.
- 18% cite rapidly changing audience lives as their biggest challenge.
Beyond basic personalization
These statistics only tell part of the story. In my conversations with marketing leaders, I’ve found that in 2025 they will completely rethink what “personalized” means. VP of Marketing Deb Garber emphasizes this development Countan Equifax company focused on fraud prevention and digital identity solutions.
“Marketing is constantly evolving and so are our target groups,” explains Garber. “What they want, how they behave, how they want to be communicated with is constantly changing and can make it difficult to keep up.”
Data-driven personalization at scale
This challenge is particularly acute for financial services companies. Marla PietonSenior Director of Influencer Marketing at Alkamia digital banking platform, has seen how sophisticated personalization drives real business results.
“The faster we can analyze the behavior of account holders in digital banking, the faster we can adapt products and services to their needs,” she explains. “This level of personalization can determine whether an account holder stays loyal to their financial institution or seeks alternatives.”
The solution? According to Pieton, it’s about modernizing your technology stack:
“To stay ahead, modernizing data technology with advanced analytics, particularly predictive analytics, can provide valuable insights into account holders’ needs and preferences, enabling more proactive and personalized experiences.”
Pro tip: Focus on refining your data collection and analysis process. By prioritizing behavioral insights and predictive analytics, you can anticipate customer needs and ensure campaigns remain impactful and relevant.
Build trust through transparency
One of the most interesting approaches I encountered came from huntressa cybersecurity company. Chief Marketing Officer Jason Marshall takes a radically transparent approach to personalization.
“We provide a full audit trail so customers can see how we use their business information,” says Marshall. “We also publish detailed guidelines on data collection and use.”
Marshall emphasizes that while more consumers are aware of their data sharing practices, clear guidelines and honest dialogue help maintain trust.
This focus on trust becomes even more important as personalization becomes more sophisticated. At GRINa creator management platform, senior director of product marketing and partnerships Olivia McNaughten sees co-selling as the next frontier.
“When you enable creators to choose products they truly love and share them with their audience, you create a memorable shopping experience for audiences who truly trust these creators when it comes to product recommendations.”
Pro tip: “Allow developers to take the lead in curating and marketing products,” says McNaughten. “It’s more personal, more impactful and delivers better results for both brands and creators.”
Scale personalization without losing the human touch
The real magic happens when companies find ways to personalize at scale while maintaining authenticity. Kacie Jenkins and her team at Sendoso combine AI, intent data, and automation to personalize interactions at scale, generating over $1 million in qualified outbound pipeline per quarter.
This balanced approach to scaling personalization pays off. Jenkins’ team successfully uses AI and data to “deliver the right personalized gift and message to the right person at the right time throughout the customer journey.”
The key? Take data maintenance seriously. “Don’t use AI if you can’t trust your data!” Jenkins emphasized.
This balance between technology and trust presents another critical challenge for marketing leaders in 2025: creating content that resonates across multiple channels while maintaining consistency and value. Let’s explore how leaders are changing their content strategies to address this challenge.
Pro tip: Start with clean, reliable data before implementing AI-driven personalization tools. The quality of your personalization efforts can only be as good as the data that drives them.
How marketing managers are changing content strategy
Our research shows that marketing leaders are evolving their content strategy beyond basic product promotion. Three key trends emerged from our data:
- 20% prioritize value-based content.
- 21% increase brand content with industry experts.
- 17% focus on content reuse across channels.
The rise of authentic video content
One of the most dramatic changes I’ve observed is taking place in video marketing. Jennifer BurakVice President of Marketing Sociablea video content platform, explains the sea change in audience preferences:
“The biggest change in video marketing is the shift to short, authentic videos to engage audiences and get them to dive deeper.”
She notes that this shift is being driven by changing social media habits and consumers’ growing preference for relevant content over sophisticated marketing materials.
Building expert communities
At Atlassian, Ashley Faus has taken this principle of authenticity even further. “We have a team of practitioners and evangelists who help us reach a more tech-savvy audience,” she explains.
The results speak for themselves: their tech evangelists have built a significant following, with one receiving LinkedIn’s Top Voice badge in 2024 and another becoming a regular keynote speaker at major tech conferences.
But what really caught my attention was Atlassian’s approach to community content. Instead of limiting themselves to outside experts, they developed a program that turns their most engaged users into content creators.
Through monthly training on new features, industry trends, and platform best practices, they help their community members become authentic voices for the brand.
Value-driven content development
“Fall in love with the customer’s problem, not your product.”
This advice from Joanie KindbladeSenior Director of Product Marketing at Lumen Technologiesa Fortune 500 technology company that provides enterprise-level network, cloud and security solutions captures how marketing managers are rethinking content strategy.
Instead of leading with product features, they first focus on understanding and addressing customer challenges.
Pro tip: Kindblade suggests creating content that “reflects customers’ values by understanding their needs, preferences and pain points.” This customer-centric approach is changing the way marketing managers think about content.
Ashleigh CookCMO at Rain focusan event marketing platform, puts this principle into practice through direct customer involvement.
“We rely on insights from our own user conferences and customer surveys to better understand where opportunities exist for broader market education and more technical education on our platform,” she explains.
“In addition, direct conversations with customers and a constant feedback loop between sales and marketing are crucial.”
Noah DyeExecutive Vice President of Global Strategic Client Engagement at a global marketing agency TEAM LEWISreinforces this change.
“Content remains king. However, it has become more of a ‘show, don’t tell’ approach,” he explains. He points to HubSpot’s 2024 State of Video Marketing survey, which found that 89% of consumers want to see more videos from brands, with 75% specifically preferring short-form video content on mobile devices.
Jennifer Burak, vice president of marketing at Socialive, agrees.
“Move from selling products to solving problems by highlighting how your brand’s mission aligns with your prospects’ values, such as sustainability, diversity, or innovation,” says Burak. “Use storytelling to create an emotional connection and collaborate with employees and customers to create relatable video content.”
Content efficiency and intelligent reuse
While high-quality content remains essential, marketing leaders are finding innovative ways to maximize its impact. At Goldcast, Palash Soni sees AI as a critical tool for content amplification.
“High-quality video content requires a lot of work and costs a lot to create,” explains Soni. “AI can help significantly reduce labor and costs by helping leverage existing video assets across channels and campaigns.”
Huntress’ Jason Marshall has taken a comprehensive content approach with Huntress’ new partner portal. The platform brings together cybersecurity training, product updates and industry insights in one place, helping to build customer expertise while strengthening their connection to the brand.
“By providing ongoing access to information about Huntress products, as well as deep insights into industry topics and marketing and sales tips, building our consumers’ cybersecurity expertise ideally brings them closer to our company,” explains Marshall.
Maintaining quality at scale
“One concern I heard again and again was maintaining content quality while scaling production. Marija KojicContent Director at CAKE.coma company that helps businesses worldwide organize and execute operations using productivity tools like Plaky, Pumble, and Clockify offered a valuable perspective:
“Search engines still prioritize well-structured content that delivers high-quality, in-depth information enriched with original expert opinions and insights – and you should too.”
In practice, this means being strategic about repurposing content. Socialive’s Jennifer Burak recommends looking for platforms that help teams efficiently convert long videos into short clips for social networks, blogs, or email campaigns.
I’ve seen this multi-channel approach work particularly well when the core content is solid and value-driven.
Pro tip: Start developing your content reuse strategy now. Identify your most valuable content and plan how it can be converted for different channels and audiences while maintaining its core value.
Outlook: content strategy in 2025
After analyzing hundreds of responses and speaking to dozens of marketing leaders, I see a clear pattern: successful content strategies in 2025 must balance authenticity, efficiency, and value.
The most effective approaches combine:
- Deep understanding of customer challenges.
- Content created by experts and the community.
- Intelligent repurposing across all channels.
- Consistent quality standards.
This multi-layered content approach is directly related to the way marketing leaders use data to make decisions. Let’s explore how leaders go beyond basic metrics to better understand and serve their audiences.
How marketing leaders use data to drive decisions
Our research shows a fascinating evolution in how marketing leaders approach data. Priorities have shifted significantly, with leaders focused on:
- Content consumption habits (33%)
- Basic demographics (32%)
- Shopping habits (28%)
Go beyond basic demographics
I’ve noticed a noticeable shift in my conversations with marketing leaders: They’re no longer satisfied with knowing who their customers are – they want to understand how their customers behave and what they prefer.
“The most significant development in marketing over the last decade has been digitally engaging audiences across multiple channels and leveraging that data footprint to drive better behavior,” explains Vibhor KapoorChief Business Officer at NextRolla marketing and advertising technology company.
“At the heart of every effective marketing team’s strategy today should be leveraging data to capture intent signals, understand behavior, make recommendations, and predict next-best actions.”
The example of financial services
I have seen this development play out particularly well in financial services. At Alkami, Marla Pieton shows how sophisticated data analysis drives personalization.
Their team uses advanced analytics to analyze account holder behavior and “uncover deeper patterns in categories such as transaction history, merchant purchasing behavior, channel usage, and interaction with previous offers.” This allows the data-driven digital banker to create more relevant and timely marketing campaigns. “
Overcome data challenges
However, marketing leaders face significant hurdles in their data initiatives:
- 21% say consumer trust in sharing personal data has decreased.
- 18% face increasing privacy regulations.
- 16% struggle with poor data quality.
Sarah Reece, Director of Demand Generation at Orum, discovered an unexpected solution: focusing on quality over quantity. Her team took the bold step of cutting all digital spend on demand capture and focusing on low-intent conversions.
“Our overall lead volume is definitely down,” Reece explains. “But we showed that leads are not a strong indicator of pipeline health… Only high-intent leads are useful for predicting pipeline (demo requests, contact sales, etc.).”
The results? “While total leads decreased, we were able to increase our overall opportunities and improve our opportunity score by focusing on maximizing the right conversions.”
Creative solutions for 2025
Looking ahead, marketing leaders are finding innovative ways to balance data needs and privacy concerns.
Chris WilliamsCMO at Arimaa cloud-based consumer insights platform that creates privacy-compliant synthetic data that reflects real-world consumer behavior proposes an unconventional approach: using synthetic data to create population simulations that can support marketing strategies while protecting individual privacy.
“Instead of trying to collect massive datasets of hard-to-access data about prospects, marketers are looking to companies that create synthetic data instead,” says Williams.
This evolving data approach represents the broader challenge facing marketing leaders as they prepare for 2025: balancing innovation with proven fundamentals. Let’s explore how leaders prepare their teams for the future.
Pro tip: Focus on collecting and analyzing the right data, not just more data. As our experts show, targeted, high-quality data points often prove more valuable than large amounts of general information.
Outlook for Marketing Managers: Preparing for 2025
As I analyzed our research and spoke with marketing executives across industries, I found a clear theme emerging: Success in 2025 requires a delicate balance between innovation and fundamentals.
Our research shows that marketing managers are preparing for several significant changes:
- 20% focus on personality-driven content and YouTuber partnerships.
- 21% diversify paid media approaches.
- 19% update SEO strategies for AI-driven search.
Embrace uncertainty
“Even with the US election behind us, uncertainty will remain in 2025,” observes Noah Dye of TEAM LEWIS. “As brands prepare for the year ahead, they must remain flexible. Make sure marketing plans can respond flexibly to changes.”
Strategic resource allocation
What surprised me most in these conversations is not just what marketing leaders are up to, but how careful they are about balancing innovation with fundamentals.
Take Kacie Jenkins, senior vice president of marketing at Sendoso, which plans to allocate 60% of its 2025 budget to building brands and categories, with the remaining 40% focused on demand generation.
Your argument?
“We know this is the way to create the trust and preference that gets us considered by the large percentage of potential buyers (95%) who are not yet in the market,” she explains.
“You know when you do something today because your future self will benefit from it, like filling up the gas tank or setting up automatic savings? Same idea.”
Preparing for multiple future prospects
In my conversations with executives, three key approaches to future-proofing stand out:
- Value comes first, technology second. “To make these things scalable, AI comes into play for top brands,” explains Palash Soni. His team focuses on using technology to reinforce proven strategies rather than replace them.
- Balanced innovation. At Lumen Technologies, Joanie Kindblade and her team explore “the possibilities of AR and LLMs in product presentation and ethical content generation,” while continuing to focus on “customer interests and ethical algorithm reasoning.”
- Trust-based relationships. Ashley Faus values community and long-term relationships. Their team has expanded their Atlassian Creator program to include more community members and hosts monthly training sessions on new features, industry trends, and best practices for the platform to increase their reach and engagement.
Pro tip: Start preparing for 2025 now by reviewing your current marketing stack and identifying areas where AI can augment (not replace) your team’s capabilities.
Marketing leadership rethought: insights for 2025
As I concluded my conversations with these marketing managers, I was excited and impressed by the insights they shared.
What impressed me most was not just their technical knowledge or strategic thinking – although both were impressive – but also their ability to stay grounded in marketing fundamentals while embracing change.
The data paints a clear picture of this balance: While marketing leaders focus on AI for multimodal campaigns (24%) and end-to-end automation (22%), they also value human elements – 90% invest in personalized experiences and 20% focus on value-driven content.
Finding balance in change
Our research confirms that marketing has changed more in the last three years than in the previous 50 years. But these leaders are doing more than just chasing the next shiny AI tool or jumping on every new trend.
Instead, they carefully consider how new technologies and approaches can amplify what already works: understanding customers, adding value and building trust.
I began this research expecting to write about dramatic technological changes.
Instead, I discovered something more nuanced: The most successful marketing managers are those who manage to balance innovation with authenticity, automation with human connection, and immediate results with long-term brand building.
Chart your course for 2025
As you plan your strategy for 2025, remember that the goal is not to implement every new tool or trend. It’s about finding the right mix of innovation and fundamentals that works for your audience, your team and your goals.
Finally, many of our experts have reminded me that while the marketing tools may change, the core principle remains the same: it’s about building real connections with the people we serve.
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in January 2023 and has been updated for completeness.