Marketing budgets have been flat at 7.7% of company revenue — and over 40% of CMOs pushing for more are losing C-suite influence. Why? They can't prove ROI.

In this episode, Francesca Roche sits down with Marie Bahl, CMO of Uptempo, to unpack why enterprise marketing still lacks a proper system of record, how the breakdown between planning and measurement costs brands millions, and what it actually takes to earn a CFO's trust.

The pressure on marketing leaders isn't just internal — it reflects a wider industry shift. As AI reshapes how businesses operate and boards demand greater accountability across every function, marketing is being held to a standard it was never structurally built to meet. With martech stacks growing in complexity and economic headwinds forcing leaner operations, the teams that will come out ahead are those investing now in a proper data backbone — not more point solutions. The conversation is moving from "what did we spend?" to "what did we build?".