The Confident B2B Marketer 2026

The second annual ANA and NewtonX Confident B2B Marketer report shows how leading B2B marketers prove financial impact, build trust with finance, and earn credibility with the C-suite.

A Confident Marketer is a senior B2B marketing leader who is extremely or very confident in their ability to measure marketing’s impact on financial performance.

This report measures one gap: whether B2B marketing can prove its financial value in terms finance actually trusts.

The report shows how leading B2B marketers are closing that gap. Based on research with senior enterprise B2B marketing leaders, finance leaders, and revenue leaders with authority over investment decisions, it reveals the behaviors that separate Confident Marketers from their peers — from stronger data infrastructure and AI readiness to better buyer group enablement and clearer links to business outcomes.

Download the report to see what’s changed, what finance now expects, and how top marketers are earning credibility with the C-suite.

What confident marketers do differently

Operating habits are the lifeblood of Confident Marketers—systems that make marketing measurable, defensible, and more connected to business growth. 

The report identifies the behaviors that separate Confident Marketers from their peers, with the largest gaps clustering around four areas: stronger data infrastructure, greater AI readiness, better buyer group enablement, and clearer connections between marketing activity and business outcomes.

Confidence here is a measurable capability, built through better systems, clearer definitions, and stronger alignment across teams. 

The credibility deficit

Marketers and finance/revenue leaders do not validate progress at the same level. When 59 percent of marketers say they can measure marketing’s financial impact, only 45 percent of finance leaders agree. Only 37 percent of finance leaders say marketing’s impact has been reliable enough to inform planning and forecasting. And just 12 percent call that measurement resilient under pressure.

Finance and revenue leaders’ trust in marketing is not binary. It erodes under scrutiny, during planning cycles, and under pressure.

The vocabulary gap

A problem runs through nearly every section of this report: marketing, sales, and finance do not share a common language. We call it the Vocabulary Gap—the absence of shared definitions around pipeline, attribution, and impact.

When definitions diverge, the same results produce different verdicts. AI outputs get questioned. Data integrations fragment. Brand investment gets cut. Champions lose internal debates. Forecasts miss.

Closing the Vocabulary Gap is the most immediate and highest-leverage move available to most B2B marketing leaders today.

Methodology

The Confident B2B Marketer 2026 draws on four sources of evidence:

• Quantitative survey: 202 senior B2B marketing leaders, director-level and above, fielded by NewtonX in April 2026
• Finance and revenue survey: 150 CFOs, VPs of finance, and heads of revenue, new for 2026
• AI-moderated qualitative interviews: 23 Confident Marketers, approximately 20 minutes each
• In-depth finance interviews: 8 senior finance executives, approximately 45 minutes each

About

ANA — The Association of National Advertisers is the definitive voice of the marketing industry, connecting more than 1,600 member companies representing 20,000 brands and $400 billion in annual marketing investment.

NewtonX — NewtonX is the only B2B research intelligence platform that delivers AI-speed insights with data you can trace. NewtonX is trusted by Google, TikTok, Salesforce, Stripe, Microsoft, and Coinbase, with research cited by Gartner, Fortune, Forbes, Adweek, and The Wall Street Journal.