This just in: Forrester asked 150 US B2C marketing executives (across industries) how challenging their various 2022 priorities will be to achieve. But what will be the most challenging?

Proving the value of marketing. Seventy-one percent of B2C marketing execs indicated that demonstrating the value of marketing to the CEO, CFO, and the board will be very — or extremely — challenging during the upcoming year.

As part of our brand-new report, The CMO And CFO Alliance, (coauthored with Tina Moffett and Dipanjan Chatterjee), I had the pleasure of interviewing Mastercard CMO Raja Rajamannar who pulled no punches when he said: “Unless marketers equip themselves with data, finance acumen, and the ability to correlate marketing activity with business impact, they will become hopelessly obsolete and get left behind.”

The solution to this perpetual quandary? CMOs must become besties with their CFO colleagues. As Meredith Verdone, CMO of Bank of America, shared: “The CMO and CFO partnership is critical. It’s the most important relationship in developing the credible story of marketing ROI.” That’s why our report details different models for CMO and CFO allyship and provides a set of KPIs that reflect business impact.

After reading it, have a listen to the full interview with Mastercard CMO Raja Rajamannar on Forrester’s What It Means podcast. Tweet me your thoughts at @McProulx, and let’s chat more about it via a Forrester guidance session.