In B2B, we often treat our marketing campaigns like fine china. We spend months "tooling them up," polishing the copy, and protecting them from critique. But according to Cari Jaquet, a seasoned "full-stack" marketing leader and category creator, that preciousness is exactly what’s killing your growth.

On the latest episode of Marketing in Progress, Gayle Kalvert sat down with Cari to discuss the high-stakes reality of being a CMO today. Her message was clear: if you want to win, you have to be willing to fail fast, feed the "AI beast," and stop saying "no" to sales.

The death of the "precious" campaign

Killing your darlings is never easy, especially when you’ve spent months perfecting a campaign. But if the sales team is telling you a narrative isn't resonating, you need to break up with that campaign. 

Here’s a hard truth: There’s nothing precious about marketing. Operational excellence in 2026 means having the logic and wherewithal to stop doing what isn't useful, even if it was your favorite project.

To that point, remember that marketing success and sales success are directly aligned. Both teams need to work together, which means the conversation should focus on having collaborative discussions. Understanding goals and objectives ensures marketing transforms from just another department into a revenue engine.

Beyond SEO: Feeding the LLM beast

The traditional marketing approach was to ensure you’re always where your buyer is. That usually meant implementing a strong keyword strategy to ensure you’re always at the top of their searches. But today, that’s not enough. Buyers are just one audience you should be speaking to. The other one? AI. 

Cari flagged that buyers aren't just Googling vendors anymore; they are asking Claude or Gemini or ChatGPT to compare pricing and messaging for them.

This matters in a big way because it’s not just about keywords to ensure you’re getting noticed. It’s about building and executing a content strategy for AI-aided search. If you don't tell the machine what it needs to know through transparent, deep-dive content (like FAQs and explainers), the machine will either make it up or eliminate you from the search results entirely.

Generating high-impact marketing

Being a CMO today feels like being an operator in a constant state of adoption. To cut through the noise, you must be a fearless experimenter who is willing to break up with yesterday’s ideas to make room for tomorrow’s revenue. This means aligning with sales teams more regularly, and ensuring that you stay focused on results. There’s no room for ego in marketing.