The Agency frequently hosts “marketing insights” conversations – candid discussions with senior marketers across industries about their successes, challenges and evolving strategies. We recently connected with a few marketing leaders to discuss their ambitions for the months ahead, the obstacles they need to overcome, how they approach measurement and stakeholder management, and, yes, AI. These are the themes that stood out.
AI complicates marketing and brand governance
AI was a significant part of all our conversations. One marketing leader at a building-products company was bullish about AI’s potential to educate the company’s sales force and touted a generative AI tool built for this purpose. Others, however, cited the challenges AI introduces.
AI empowers marketers to work faster and produce work in areas where they lack deep expertise. However, this can backfire without strong guardrails. A marketing leader at a global materials company discussed how colleagues outside the marketing team used AI to generate marketing materials, estimating that only about 30% of it was usable. Another marketer at an industrial equipment company shared an example of an account manager using AI to create unauthorized variations of the company’s logo.
When marketing doesn’t lead, AI experimentation becomes aimless and brand integrity degrades. AI tempts curious, smart, and well-intentioned employees to veer outside their lanes. While this democratization can improve efficiency, it also increases risk.
Marketers are uniquely positioned to guide their companies through this paradigm shift. By owning AI education, establishing shared tools (e.g., sharable “skills,” prompt libraries, etc.), and implementing review and approval processes, marketers can ensure AI outputs meet brand and quality standards. With this leadership, AI is an asset, not a risk.
Marketers need to embrace the ROI discussion
Budget pressure was a consistent theme in our conversations, as marketers described rising expectations for directly attributing return on ad spend to sales. The building-products marketing leader said that their team’s top goal for 2026 is helping the company hit its sales targets.
This focus on ROI naturally leads to measurement. A marketer at a global professional services company said improving analytics insights is their top priority. They cited ongoing challenges with consistently determining which tactics generate the best payoff and the difficulty of measuring formats like podcasts and videos.
More advanced companies are moving beyond basic metrics such as views, clicks, and impressions. The building-products marketer discussed using server-side tracking APIs to connect company servers and ad platforms, enabling direct attribution of social media and influencer-driven marketing activity to actual sales.
All companies should enhance their measurement infrastructure, capturing accurate cross-channel data, organizing it, and creating analytics processes to mine insights. AI can play a major role here, helping marketers make sense of disparate data, tease out opportunities, and adjust strategy with precision.
Rich content still wins
The Internet is now flooded with mediocre AI-generated content, which the marketers we spoke with oppose. They each determined through experimentation that rich, timely, and high-quality content continues to generate meaningful results.
A marketer at a global technology and engineering company emphasized the importance of depth and customer focus. They explained content’s critical role in the customer journey, arguing that the strongest material validates the company’s expertise and reassures buyers that it can deliver solutions to even the most complex challenges.
Rich content doesn’t need to be limited to in-depth writing. The industrial equipment marketer cited YouTube as their highest-engagement channel, with how-to and product-highlight videos leading the way.
The professional services marketer highlighted the enduring power of webinars for engagement and trackable conversion. They also discussed the strength of content “packages” tied to timely topics – like an article that sets up a webinar unveiling a report or study, with the webinar then driving attendees to the report for deeper exploration.
These insights align with what we see across our clients’ industries. As buyers explore multiple channels and face overwhelming content volume, companies vying for their attention must deliver compelling, high-value content in diverse formats – and ensure it appears where buyers actively seek information.
Upheaval and opportunity for marketers
AI upending marketing workflows presents a huge opportunity for marketing teams to step up as AI leaders. They can elevate the quality of AI-generated work across their companies, accelerate the creation of high-quality assets, and upgrade data analysis and reporting. Mastering AI will empower marketers to drive superior customer engagement and make a more direct contribution to their companies’ commercial goals.
About our authors
Kyle Adams is a managing director for The Agency at Sikich and leader of the team’s work with B2B companies. He develops and executes comprehensive marketing programs that help companies raise brand awareness, promote products and services, and showcase expertise. Kyle.adams@sikich.com
Mackenzie Ernest is a director at The Agency at Sikich, with an emphasis on public relations solutions. She works with clients in a range of industries, from professional services to juvenile products, not-for-profit organizations to manufacturing. Mackenzie has supported many award-winning programs rooted in media relations, writing, marketing, event planning, and social media strategy. Mackenzie.ernest@sikich.com
This publication contains general information only and Sikich is not, by means of this publication, rendering accounting, business, financial, investment, legal, tax, or any other professional advice or services. This publication is not a substitute for such professional advice or services, nor should you use it as a basis for any decision, action or omission that may affect you or your business. Before making any decision, taking any action or omitting an action that may affect you or your business, you should consult a qualified professional advisor. In addition, this publication may contain certain content generated by an artificial intelligence (AI) language model. You acknowledge that Sikich shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by you or any person who relies on this publication.
