What the WFA and Ebiquity measurement report found
The World Federation of Advertisers and Ebiquity published new research on July 13, 2026 showing that only 15% of senior marketing leaders say marketing effectiveness data is a primary influence on budget decisions. The study covers 71 senior leaders across 10 industries, including marketers at PepsiCo, Ford, Mondelez and Mars Wrigley.
Key numbers from the WFA and Ebiquity effectiveness study
The gap between measurement investment and measurement use runs through the whole report. Eight in 10 organizations use marketing mix modeling and brand lift studies for their paid media. Far fewer say those insights change how money gets allocated.
Speed is one culprit. Fifty-four percent of marketers say insights arrive too late to act on as decision cycles compress. More marketers are turning to automation to keep up, yet 67% rate their automation maturity as low.
Alignment is another. Just 14% of companies say marketers and CFOs agree on the definition of marketing effectiveness. The report argues marketers still lean on vanity metrics instead of measures tied to commercial impact. Data infrastructure lags too: 46% of marketing organizations sit at the lowest maturity level for integrating data sources into a unified view, and only 4% are highly confident they can separate short-term sales impact from long-term brand building. Not one marketer surveyed claimed best-in-class measurement capability.
Even so, optimism is high. Three-quarters of respondents believe measurement-led insights will guide more than half of their budget allocations within three years.
“The tools are there, the discipline is there, the coverage is there. Where marketers still struggle is to turn all those measurements into decisions that impact the business,” said Sorin Patilinet, who works on global marketing effectiveness at PepsiCo, in a statement attached to the findings.
Who published the WFA and Ebiquity findings
The findings come from Ebiquity, an independent marketing effectiveness consultancy, and the WFA, the trade association for multinational marketers. The groups surveyed 71 senior leaders globally in the spring and ran in-depth interviews with 27 of them. Marketing Dive first reported the results on July 13, 2026.
Why measurement maturity matters for B2B marketing budgets
The findings land in a year when marketing money is under a microscope. Gartner’s 2026 CMO spend data shows awareness and conversion now absorb 62.6% of paid media budgets while retention spending falls, which raises the stakes on proving what that spend returns. The pressure is personal as well as financial: Lippincott found just 28% of CMOs say they hold high organizational influence, and a LinkedIn study reported 74% of B2B marketers believe buyers distrust traditional marketing. The WFA and Ebiquity report adds a warning for what comes next. Investment in retail media, connected TV, influencer marketing and AI-powered search is growing faster than the measurement infrastructure built to assess those channels. Marketers who cannot turn evidence into action on mature channels will find it even harder on immature ones.
Talking Shift
The industry keeps treating measurement as a tooling problem. This report says the tools are fine. Only 14% of companies have marketing and finance agreeing on what effectiveness even means, so the dashboards are answering a question the business never settled. Measurement does not lose budget arguments because the math is weak. Start Some Shift’s read: budgets follow shared definitions, and a measurement stack cannot outvote a CFO who was never sold on the definition of effectiveness. For established B2B brands, the fastest measurement upgrade available this quarter is a one-page agreement with finance on which numbers count, over what time frame, and what happens to budget when they move.
What B2B marketers should do with the WFA and Ebiquity findings
The report points to fixes that cost alignment effort instead of new software.
- Agree with your CFO on a single written definition of marketing effectiveness before the next planning cycle.
- Audit which of your current reports actually changed a budget decision in the past 12 months, and cut the rest.
- Set delivery deadlines for insights that match decision timelines, since 54% of marketers say insights arrive too late.
- Separate short-term sales metrics from brand-building metrics in every report, and label them as such.
- Assign one owner for integrating data sources, given 46% of organizations sit at the lowest maturity level.
- Pressure-test measurement plans for newer channels like retail media and AI search before spending scales.
What to watch next in marketing measurement
The report’s boldest claim is the three-year forecast, with 75% of leaders expecting measurement-led insights to guide most budget allocations by 2029. Watch whether CFO alignment numbers move first, since definitions tend to precede decisions. Watch also whether measurement for AI-powered search matures before B2B budgets shift into it at scale.
