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Time after time, CMOs are told to do more with less — tighter budgets, leaner staff, higher stakes with MarTech. That’s the harsh reality of a cost center with an attribution problem. Worse, marketing champions creativity while most everyone else is driven by dollars, making marketing an outlier at times.

Now the uncertainties emerging from the pandemic are accelerating the call for marketing to spend more diligently and efficiently. There’s greater expectation for increased and tangible returns on marketing investments. Simply put, more eyes are on marketing spend.

Given these pressures, how should CMOs respond? 

Here’s a novel idea: Welcome the attention. The CMO Council and KPMG released a new report, Smart Spending At Speed. A key finding is that CMOs who more actively involve procurement professionals in marketing sourcing enjoy a more positive impact on the overall maturing and quality of marketing sourcing decisions. 

“We whittled down some 25 creative agencies to three,” says a marketing leader in the report. “We eliminate extra costs by driving more business through a select group of agencies on a pre contracted rate. Our creative costs went from 25% of budget to less than half of that.”

Related: Check out our new report Smart Spending At Speed

Even better, procurement professionals can actually speed up time to value in marketing sourcing. Wait, what? Conventional thinking is that procurement with its paperwork and processes slows down sourcing, but the CMO Council report shows the opposite. Standardized processes and templates make vetting vendors faster.

“They facilitate the whole selection process, helping us understand where we have gaps, running formal RFIs and RFPs, and speeding up the selection process by three to four months,” says Amy Lund, vice president of creative and communications at E&J Gallo Winery, in the report. “They don’t always evaluate creative correctly, but they know how to interpret what the business unit is asking for.”

The problem is that far too many marketing departments aren’t taking advantage of procurement. Only around one out of four marketing leaders actively partners with procurement in the identification, selection and negotiation of marketing vendors. This is a missed opportunity to improve sourcing, especially with MarTech.

The good news is that marketing leaders are beginning to see the light.

“I’m seeing procurement get a more prominent seat at the table with MarTech, particularly over the last 24 months,” says CMO Paul Suchman at Audacy, in the report. “Needing to save dollars, doing things smarter and putting processes in place have all become really paramount.”

If you want to learn the importance of reassessing your relationship with procurement in order to make smarter sourcing decisions, speed up time to value, and achieve outcomes for successful, modern marketing, download the report today.

Related: Get ahead of the disruption! Become a CMO Council Member today!