The good: 93% of VP+ B2C marketing and advertising decision-makers say they have a formal marketing operations function, according to Forrester’s Q1 2025 CMO Pulse Survey.
The bad: Many B2C marketing operations functions are usually limited to a handful of marketing disciplines (or sometimes just a single discipline). For example, in Forrester’s Marketing Survey, 2025, B2C marketing operations functions are mainly responsible for marketing technology and strategy management (top-ranked response, at 54%), followed by planning and budget management (second place, 42%).
The beauty: For B2C marketing operations functions to mature, they must shift from tactical problem-solvers to integral business decision-makers that enable all of marketing — and not just a portion of marketing. Consider that B2C marketing operations functions can be responsible for a wide range of critical marketing elements and disciplines across:
- Planning and budgeting management: aligning cross-functional revenue planning with marketing investments
- Customer data strategy and management: owning marketing data strategy, stewardship, and team enablement
- Creative development and asset management: driving creative ideation to execution for marketing content
- Marketing technology strategy and management: establishing a martech vision and guiding roadmap development
- Measurement and analytics management: overseeing metrics interpretation, analysis, insight, and forecast modeling
- Process design and agile marketing management: enabling organizational agility and adaptability
- Marketing operations team design: designing the marketing operations function to ensure that the function can accomplish its responsibilities (note that this isn’t a job for the marketing operations function itself)
Where to begin? Check out our latest tools, adapted from our B2B marketing research, to help you further your B2C marketing operations function.
More questions? Schedule a guidance session or inquiry with us!
