The Adaptive CMO’s Secret Weapon:

How Experimental Marketers Bridge Strategy and Execution

I first “e-met” Rio during one of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) zoom calls, where we discussed the CMO Martech Playbook, specially topics around customer data and governance.

Then, after a little while I read his article on Fast Company magazine, explaining how CMOs must be adaptive now and it just got me thinking about how the Experimental Marketer Framework would help this CMO…and that was the beginning of the article below.

A first version of this article was published by me about one year ago. But since there are many more of you know than there was then, I re wrote the article to reshare with all of you. I hope you enjoy!

And, as always, please let me know your comments and feedback. Just reply to this email to get this convo going!

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CMOs who survive the current upheaval aren’t just strategic thinkers—they’re tactical executors who understand technology, collaborate across functions, and measure everything. The Experimental Marketer framework provides the specific methodology these “Adaptive CMOs” need to thrive in their expanded roles.

The Chief Marketing Officer role is undergoing radical surgery. Average CMO tenure at Fortune 500 companies was 4.3 years in 2024, slightly up from 4.2 years in 2023, yet still below the C-suite average of 4.9 years. Meanwhile, major brands including Starbucks, UPS, Etsy, Walgreens, Lowe’s, Hyatt Hotels, McDonald’s, Johnson & Johnson, Uber, and Lyft have eliminated the CMO position entirely (some of these companies may have added CMOs while others have have removed then since his article was written). Yet marketing budgets haven’t disappeared—they’ve been redistributed across multiple executives with broader mandates.

This shift reveals a fundamental truth: the traditional brand steward model is dead. Today’s surviving CMOs must evolve into what Rio Longacre, Partner Advertising & AdTech at Credera, calls “Adaptive CMOs“—modern bridge-builders and collaborators, a far cry from the rockstar CMOs of yesteryear.

Here’s where the Experimental Marketer Framework becomes strategic and indispensable. It provides the structured approach these evolved CMOs need to succeed across their expanded responsibilities.

The Technology Executor

The challenge: Adaptive CMOs must be comfortable with technology and surround themselves with capable Marketing Technologists who can translate strategy into measurable results.

The reality: Most CMOs inherited their roles during simpler times when technology decisions could be delegated. Now they’re personally accountable for marketing technology ROI while lacking the technical depth to make informed decisions.

How Experimental Marketers help: The framework transforms marketers into Marketing Technologists through systematic skill development. Rather than remaining surface-level “users” of marketing technology, Experimental Marketers develop deep technical competency across martech stacks.

This means understanding data flows, not just dashboards. Knowing how attribution models work, not just reading attribution reports. Building customer journey maps that reflect actual system capabilities, not theoretical ideal states.

The Experimental Marketer’s 8 E’s methodology (Evaluate, Experiment, Execute, Examine, Extend, Expand, Explain and Evolve) provides CMOs with a repeatable process for technology decisions. Instead of vendor demos and feature comparisons, they get structured evaluation frameworks that tie directly to business outcomes.

The Stack Optimization Specialist

The challenge: Adaptive CMOs now oversee both Marketing Technology (Martech) and Advertising Technology (Adtech) investments, becoming personally responsible for demonstrating ROI across fragmented technology portfolios.

The reality: Marketing technology sprawl has created accountability nightmares. CMOs face boards demanding proof that their 50+ tool ecosystem delivers measurable value, while most teams can’t even map their current technology relationships.

How Experimental Marketers help: The framework extends beyond top-of-funnel activities to encompass full-funnel optimization. Experimental Marketers don’t just run campaigns—they architect integrated customer experiences across all touchpoints.

This comprehensive approach enables CMOs to optimize their entire technology stack, not individual tools. When every marketing technology investment follows the same experimental methodology, CMOs can demonstrate cumulative value rather than defending point solutions.

Consider attribution measurement. Traditional marketers might argue over first-touch versus last-touch models. Experimental Marketers design attribution experiments that test multiple models simultaneously, identifying which approaches best predict actual business outcomes for their specific context.

The Operational Leader

The challenge: Modern CMOs must become Chief Marketing Executors, deeply involved in operational details as marketing activities migrate from external vendors to in-house teams.

The reality: Data privacy regulations, increasing costs, and demands for budget accountability have forced marketing operations inward. CMOs who once managed agencies now manage complex internal processes spanning technology, analytics, creative production, and customer operations.

How Experimental Marketers help: The framework emphasizes execution excellence, not just strategic thinking. Experimental Marketers excel at operational management because their methodology treats process optimization as systematically as campaign optimization.

They help build repeatable workflows for technology implementation, establish measurement frameworks that scale across teams, and create documentation standards that survive personnel changes. Most importantly, they connect tactical execution back to strategic goals, ensuring operational improvements translate into business results.

The framework’s experimentation focus prevents operational stagnation. Instead of “this is how we’ve always done it,” Experimental Marketers continuously test process improvements, measuring efficiency gains alongside marketing performance metrics.

The Cross-Functional Collaborator

The challenge: Adaptive CMOs must build strong partnerships with CFOs and CTOs, repositioning marketing as a valued partner in revenue generation and execution excellence.

The reality: Marketing has historically struggled with credibility among technical and financial stakeholders. Vague metrics, attribution gaps, and unclear ROI have positioned marketing as a cost center rather than a growth driver.

How Experimental Marketers help: The framework emphasizes measurement and systematic thinking—languages that resonate with CFOs and CTOs. When marketers approach problems experimentally, they speak in hypotheses, control groups, and statistical significance rather than intuition and creativity.

This methodological approach extends beyond C-suite relationships into day-to-day collaboration with product teams, sales operations, customer success, and data engineering. Experimental Marketers become valuable partners because they contribute analytical rigor to cross-functional projects.

For example, when collaborating with product teams on feature adoption, Experimental Marketers don’t just create launch campaigns. They design experiments measuring how different messaging approaches affect user behavior, providing product teams with actionable insights about customer psychology and communication effectiveness.

Building Your Experimental Marketing Capability

The Experimental Marketer framework addresses the Adaptive CMO’s evolution through three core competencies:

Technical Fluency: Developing hands-on understanding of marketing technology, data analysis, and system integration. This goes beyond vendor training to include programming concepts, database structures, and API functionality.

Experimental Methodology: Applying scientific approaches to marketing decisions, treating campaigns as hypotheses that require testing and validation. This includes control group design, statistical analysis, and systematic result interpretation.

Cross-Functional Collaboration: Building relationships based on shared measurement standards and systematic problem-solving approaches that align with engineering and finance methodologies.

The Survival Advantage

One way or another, CMOs are evolving into more accountable, collaborative, and operationally sophisticated leaders. The Experimental Marketer Framework provides the specific skills and methodologies these Adaptive CMOs need to thrive in their expanded roles.

Adaptive CMOs focus on measurable business impact delivered through marketing technology implementations and cross-functional partnerships. The Experimental Marketer Framework helps Marketers bridge this gap, transforming marketing teams into technical, analytical, and operationally excellent growth engines.

The question isn’t whether your CMO role will evolve, but rather if Marketers will also become adaptive to better support their leadership. If the answer is yes, the Experimental Marketer framework provides the roadmap.