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Great Marketing Doesnt Fix Bad Math

Great Marketing Doesnt Fix Bad Math

27th Edition: Through the Funnel (Marketing News & Jobs)

MarketingHQ
November 25, 2025

News From MHQ to You 📰

Most companies are planning 2026 with a growth model that hasn’t worked since 2022, but their budgets, headcount plans, and revenue targets still pretend it does.

The problem isn’t marketing talent.
It’s that the growth-at-all-costs math no longer works.

Before you talk budgets or campaigns, you have to reset the assumptions your entire GTM engine sits on.

The old model rewarded spend.
The new model rewards precision, alignment, and efficiency.

The T2D2 Playbook (And Why It No Longer Works)

To understand how we got here, you have to understand the playbook that shaped the last decade.

For a decade, SaaS followed one formula: triple, triple, double, double (T2D2).

This wasn’t advice, it was the VC-endorsed path from ~$1M to $10M+ ARR:

Year 1: $1M → $3M
Year 2: $3M → $9M
Year 3: $9M → $18M
Year 4: $18M → $36M

To hit these numbers, companies leaned heavily on GTM headcount, paid acquisition, and growth-at-all-costs tactics.

How T2D2 Worked - and What It Forced Marketing To Do

T2D2 didn’t just dictate revenue targets, it reshaped how companies built their GTM engines. The entire system became dependent on volume, speed, and constant pipeline acceleration.

Marketing became the engine powering T2D2:

40-60% of new ARR
Budgets at 15-30% of revenue
Paid channels scaled endlessly
CAC didn’t matter, the next round “fixed” everything

Marketing’s mandate?

Feed the pipeline furnace.
More MQLs! More pipeline! More acceleration!

And it worked because the environment allowed it:

Low CAC
Predictable conversions
Large Sales teams, including Inside Sales
Short sales cycles
High-intent inbound
Limited competition
Cheap capital

That world is gone!

The Collapse of the Growth-At-All-Costs Model

T2D2 created the blueprint for growth-at-all-costs. The entire GTM motion from headcount, budgets, pipeline targets, to hiring profiles was designed around one assumption: if you pour more fuel on the fire, growth will follow.

That mindset didn’t just shape strategy; it shaped what companies expected Marketing to be.

But all of these dynamics have flipped:

CAC is 2-3x higher
Buying committees expanded
Demand is flat or shrinking
Buyer trust is low
Boards prioritize efficiency
Cheap capital evaporated

The old “just generate more pipeline” playbook isn’t just outdated for the business, it’s outdated for your career.

Because today, agreeing to targets built on yesterday’s model doesn’t drive growth; it accelerates the CMO post-mortem.

What CMOs Can Do to Avoid This Trap

Before accepting targets, CMOs must pressure-test the math:

Run CAC payback models using current conversion rates (see last week’s issue)
Validate actual in-market demand
Stress-test pipeline assumptions against real buyer behavior
Ensure budget + headcount match expectations
Align with the CEO/board on the real marketing role being hired

If the model doesn’t work on paper, it won’t work in the market.

The Four Marketing Roles (and the Hidden Mismatch)

The roles companies hired for in the old world no longer match the world they’re operating in today

Matthew Selheimer at Forrester outlines 4 marketing roles:

Support: Tactical execution
Partner: Collaborative support
Promoting: Pipeline, demand, late-stage activation
Driving: Narrative, ICP, differentiation, early demand

Under Growth-at-All-Costs, companies hired Promoting CMOs, because the model depended on volume.

Today demands something entirely different.

The Core Misalignment

And here’s where everything breaks. Companies say they want efficiency:

Tighter ICP
Sharper narrative
Clear differentiation
Early buyer influence
GTM alignment

But they hire a Promoting CMO…
and expect Driving level outcomes.

The Promoting CMO made sense when the job was volume. But Growth-Through-Efficiency requires something fundamentally different.

And in this new era, Marketing is somehow expected to deliver all of this with smaller teams, smaller budgets, and shrinking Sales support; including BDR functions that have been quietly gutted across B2B.

In a Growth-Through-Efficiency world, this becomes fatal:

Efficiency requires strategy, not spend
Pipeline problems originate upstream
Paid is too expensive to brute-force
CMOs must influence Product + Sales, not just campaigns

Add in:

More execution being outsourced
AI accelerating that trend
Sales-led orgs still demanding Marketing-led outcomes

…and CMOs step into misalignment on day one.

The Modern Role: Marketing as the GTM Enabler

This is where the shift becomes clear: the era of Promoting CMOs is ending, and the companies winning in 2026 are moving toward a Driving-focused, GTM-Enabler model.

The role that fits today’s environment:

Marketing as the GTM Enabler, the anchor of Growth-Through-Efficiency.

This role:

Shapes the narrative
Defines and enforces ICP
Builds trust early
Clarifies product value
Aligns the GTM motion
Unblocks Sales
Influences Product
Drives efficiency across channels (not volume)

This is the role high-performing 2026 companies are hiring for. Because when Marketing becomes the GTM Enabler, it removes friction, increases win rates, and amplifies every team’s productivity. Without adding spend.

Growth-Through-Efficiency Model (Replacing T2D2)

High-performing B2B companies are shifting toward:

Earlier buyer influence
Narrative-led differentiation
Community + credibility
Rigid ICP discipline
Cross-functional GTM alignment
Efficiency as the strategy

It’s not about expanding the system.
It’s about tightening it.

Efficiency isn’t the constraint now.
It’s the engine.

How CMOs Fix Role Misalignment (Next 60 Days)

Clearly define your current marketing role
Align KPIs to that role
Reset expectations with CEO + board
Rebuild the growth model around efficiency
Align org structure to actual responsibilities

Then retrain the org on the real funnel:
Awareness → Trust → Demand → Intent → Revenue

The Role Companies Actually Need in 2026

The fastest-growing companies have moved past Promoters and even Drivers, they’re hiring GTM Enablers. CMOs who influence ICP, narrative, product direction, pricing, differentiation, category, and the entire GTM motion.

Their job: create early demand by architecting the system — not by shoving more volume into it.

Not Promoters.
Not Drivers.
Enablers.

Your Move This Week

Run this with your exec team:

Identify your current marketing role
Identify the role the business actually needs
Audit KPIs for alignment
Reassess whether growth expectations are still T2D2-era
Build your 2026 GTM model around the correct role

Misalignment isn’t a mystery, it’s math. Fix the role, fix the model, fix the outcomes.

If you want more playbooks like this, and a place to workshop your 2026 plan with peers, join the MarketingHQ community. It’s where we share deeper dives like this one. Plus, you receive:

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