In the high-stakes world of B2B, where buying groups swell to an average of 22 stakeholders and journeys span 10 interaction points, misalignment between marketing and product teams can derail even the most promising initiatives. Recent research underscores that CMOs who forge tight partnerships with chief product officers drive superior growth and operational efficiency, yet many organizations linger in siloed “functional” relationships rather than achieving true strategic collaboration.

Forrester analyst Matthew Selheimer highlights how strategic alignment delivers stronger customer value, faster go-to-market execution, and optimized resources. “The working relationships between CMOs, chief product officers, and their organizations range quite broadly according to our research: from ‘poor’ or ‘functional’ (i.e., not adversarial but siloed and misaligned) to ‘collaborative’ and ‘productive,’” he writes, based on the report Strong B2B Marketing And Product Leader Alignment Drives Growth And Efficiency.

This divide stems from vision gaps—product investments untethered from commercialization plans—and operational rifts like clashing metrics. CMOs cannot delegate this fix; personal leadership is essential.

Persistent Silos Undermine Revenue Engines

Forrester’s findings reveal that while leaders acknowledge the need for marketing-product-sales harmony, partnership-building often falls secondary to immediate fires. In one analysis, relationships cluster as “poor/functional,” where teams coexist without friction but lack proactive synergy, stunting commercialization.

Operational tensions abound: weak pre-launch collaboration leaves marketing blindsided, while differing KPIs—such as marketing’s focus on acquisition costs versus product’s time-to-value—fragment efforts. Forrester’s Mavis Liew notes only 21% of marketing leaders prioritize shifting from leads to buying-group management, per the 2025 Marketing Survey, despite 73% of B2B revenue flowing from existing customers.

McKinsey echoes this in its CMO Growth Research Survey, where B2B buyers now navigate 10 touchpoints versus five in 2016, demanding integrated strategies. “As the number of customer touchpoints continues to grow, marketing can act as the company’s key integrator, collaborating with leaders from… product,” the firm states.

Best Practices Forge Productive Partnerships

High-performing CMOs build alignment through shared audience focus, marrying market insights with product opportunities for connected messaging. Structured processes clarify roles, ensure decision transparency, and assess commercial viability early, per Forrester’s playbook.

Early collaboration aligns growth opportunities, segments, and value propositions, with joint intelligence-sharing on markets and competitors. Unified metrics like net revenue retention, customer acquisition cost, and time-to-value anchor joint dashboards, fostering accountability.

Trusted ties emerge from shared customer visits, regular check-ins, and “show and tell” sessions. Selheimer advises starting with joint planning: “Schedule a joint planning session to review one another’s goals, metrics, and upcoming priorities.”

Five Core Practices Power CMO-CPO Synergy

Forrester details five pillars for success: shared audiences and outcomes, structured frameworks like the Product Marketing And Management Model, early involvement in discovery, unified goals, and relationship rituals. “Stronger business performance emerges when marketing and product align around buyer needs and shared commercial priorities,” the firm asserts in its guidance.

McKinsey’s exec voices reinforce: Fortune Brands’ Mark-Hans Richer says, “It’s the CMO’s job to ensure we have the deep customer insights to strongly guide our decisions across everything we do.” General Motors’ Norm de Greve adds, “I don’t think people spend enough time aligning on the right metrics.”

Yet challenges persist; Spencer Stuart reports CMOs at just 66% of Fortune 500 firms in 2024, down from 71%, signaling scrutiny amid fragmented C-suites averaging half more members since 2020.

2026 Trends Amplify Alignment Pressures

European B2B marketers, per Forrester, prioritize shared KPIs across marketing, sales, and product amid volatility, with over 80% eyeing budget hikes. The CMO surveys 2026 plans leaning into brand early, AI literacy, and flexible teams.

Gartner’s insights stress low-effort buying via hybrid digital-human touches, where buyers are 1.8 times more likely to close with sales rep-aided tools. Marketing Week notes 10.6% of B2B firms added heads of marketing last year, tying to growth redefinition.

Revenue ops alignment yields 27% faster profit growth and 36% higher retention, per 1827 Marketing, as agentic AI and self-service ecosystems demand unified customer workflows.

C-Suite Metrics and Mindset Shifts

McKinsey finds companies with unified customer roles grow 2.3 times faster. CMOs must tie efforts to revenue, with 70% of CEOs tracking year-over-year growth versus 35% of CMOs. “Once we as a C-suite… agree on company goals… I expect the CMO to tie marketing metrics… to that big picture,” says a gaming CFO.

Forrester urges CMOs to champion revenue transformation, engineering alignment across demand, product marketing, and ops for persona consensus. Postsale expansion—73% of revenue—requires recalibrating KPIs to retention and upsell.

In practice, joint customer advisory boards filter for forward-thinking input, prioritizing pilots over swag, as shared by product leaders on X.

Path Forward for Enduring Gains

CMOs lead by scheduling cross-functional reviews quarterly, per Heimdall Data, aligning ICPs, messaging, and experiments. Tie comp to shared pipeline, as one X revenue strategist notes: “If your CMO’s bonus isn’t partially tied to the same pipeline number your CRO owns, you don’t have alignment.”

Outcomes? Faster launches, higher profitability, better retention. As Selheimer concludes, true partnership calibrates resources to buyer needs for shared wins. In 2026’s AI-driven, buyer-autonomous era, this isn’t optional—it’s the growth engine.