Your team is busy. Your dashboards are full. Yet the fastest way to get surprised is to skip the right sales reports. Research is not a book club. It is a buyer’s cheat code for better decision-making.
This article curates the most useful recent sales and marketing. You will see what each report covers, when to use it, and how to convert insights into a smarter tech roadmap.
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- How AI Helps CMOs Hit Key Marketing KPIs Faster
- Sales Automation: How to Cut Admin and Sell More
Which Sales and Marketing Reports Should You Read First?
1) Gartner 2025 CMO Spend Survey
What it covers: Marketing budget benchmarks, plus where CMOs are chasing productivity.
When to use it: When finance asks why spend is not shrinking, and you need martech insights to back up your response.
How to apply it:
- Benchmark your budget story against peers.
- Build a consolidation plan before procurement forces one.
- Prioritize tools that remove work and reduce friction.
2) HubSpot 2025 State of Marketing Report
What it covers: 2025 marketing research & trends, with heavy focus on AI, what is working, and what is losing impact.
When to use it: When you need marketing reports to showcase how global leaders are utilizing a major industry mainstay.
How to apply it:
- Cut low-impact work fast.
- Refresh content and channel bets with trend data.
- Align marketing ops priorities with what teams can execute.
3) Twilio 2025 State of Customer Engagement Report
What it covers: Strategies behind one-to-one engagement, plus AI and personalization trends and consumer insights for 2025.
When to use it: When marketing, CX, and data teams need shared direction.
How to apply it:
- Define “one-to-one” in plain business terms.
- Prioritize channels where customers actually respond.
- Tie personalization to consent and data quality.
4) Intuit Mailchimp “Art of the Opt-In” Rep
What it covers: What marketers miss at the opt-in moment, based on research with Ascend2 across multiple markets.
When to use it: When lifecycle performance plateaus.
How to apply it:
- Improve signup flows and preference centers.
- Set expectations clearly at opt-in.
- Use early signals to segment smarter from day one.
5) Gartner 2025 Tech Marketing Benchmarks Survey
What it covers: Gartner’s Marketing Benchmarks package for tech marketers, based on its 2025 Tech Marketing Benchmarks Survey. It’s designed to help you benchmark against peers and “rationalize” strategy and plans using real martech insights.
When to use it: When you need to defend budget, reset the mix, or prove you are not over investing in the wrong programs for 2025 planning and into 2026.
How to apply it:
- Benchmark investments (programs, brand, ABM) to flag overspend and underfunded areas.
- Use the 2025 marketing mix trends to reshape channel and program priorities before renewals.
- Treat the GenAI impact findings as your prompt to add governance, skills, and workflow redesign into the roadmap.
Want a clean measurement framework before you scale AI spend? Check out our explainer on AI Marketing KPIs.
6) Forrester Predictions 2026: B2B Marketing, Sales, and Product
What it covers: 2026 predictions shaped by AI risk, buyer trust, and market volatility.
When to use it: When you are planning 2026 investments and governance.
How to apply it:
- Treat ungoverned AI as a brand and revenue risk.
- Add controls to every AI workflow.
- Align product and go-to-market around shared signals.
7) Salesforce State of Sales Report for 2026
What it covers: A global survey on how sales teams plan to use AI and AI agents as a growth tactic in 2026.
When to use it: When leaders want proof that “AI for sales” is real.
How to apply it:
- Map agent use cases to the sales cycle.
- Target admin bottlenecks first.
- Build data readiness into your rollout plan.
8) McKinsey & Company: State of Marketing Europe 2026
What it covers: With a focus on European marketing executives, this collection of marketing research dives into the three core themes. They are 1) How to be trusted 2) How to be effective, and 3) How to be bold.
When to use it: When you need to stay on top of the latest marketing trends and best practices.
How to apply it:
- If you need inspiration, follow their guidance on the role AI in creating ‘bold’ marketing.
- When struggling to prove ROI, read about how to navigate common obstacles to ‘effectiveness’.
- To build emotionally relevant campaigns and branding that makes an impact
9) Forrester Budget Planning Guide 2026: B2B Marketing Executives
What it covers: A 2026 CMO budget planning guide + companion workbook focused on building a more resilient budget. It emphasizes adaptive planning, divesting from legacy spend, and doubling down on innovation.
When to use it: When you need marketing research to set your 2026 plan and need a structured way to choose what to fund, what to cut, and what to modernize without breaking alignment.
How to apply it:
- Use its benchmarking guidance to sanity-check spend assumptions, including the stat that 83% of B2B marketing decision-makers expect investments to rise over the next 12 months.
- Run a “divest vs. invest” workshop to identify programs that no longer add value, then redirect budget to higher-impact bets.
- Turn the workbook into a practical planning sprint: assess, prioritize, and implement changes with owners and timelines.
10) Adobe 2026 AI and Digital Trends Report
What it covers: A global survey of executives and practitioners on GenAI progress and plans for agentic AI.
When to use it: When your org says, “We need agents,” but cannot define success.
How to apply it:
- Check if your data foundation supports scale.
- Align executives and practitioners on outcomes.
- Add operating model change to the roadmap.
What Should Enterprise Buyers Watch Most Closely in 2026?
Three patterns show up across this 2025 to 2026 reading list.
- Budgets stay tight, so productivity wins.
- Digital dominates, so measurement matters more
- When AI scales, governance becomes a differentiator.
If your roadmap ignores those themes, it will not age well.
Final Takeaway
If you have not read these sales reports and marketing reports, your strategy may still sound confident. It just may not be supported. That is how budgets get cut and tech stacks get messy.
Pick out the reports that are most relevant, whether it’s martech insights or sales enablement advice. Ask yourself whether you’re staying up to date on these unmissable trends. Then update your roadmap before your competitors can overtake.
FAQs
What are sales reports?
Sales reports are research or performance documents that explain sales trends, benchmarks, and drivers. They help leaders plan, forecast, and improve execution.
What are marketing reports?
Marketing reports summarize trends in budgets, channels, buyer behavior, and performance. They help teams decide what to stop, start, and scale.
What is marketing research used for?
Marketing research is used to benchmark budgets and performance, understand customer and buyer behavior, evaluate channels, and reduce risk in planning. It helps teams justify spend, set priorities, and choose which initiatives to scale or cut.
How do sales reports help enterprise buyers?
Sales reports help enterprise buyers forecast demand, benchmark performance, and improve execution. They highlight shifts in buyer behavior, sales productivity, and go-to-market strategy, so leaders can make smarter decisions on process, enablement, and technology.
What are martech insights useful for?
Martech insights help leaders understand how marketing technology is evolving and what capabilities matter most. They are used to identify trends, spot risks, plan operating model changes, and build a roadmap for data, automation, measurement, and AI.
If you want the bigger picture before you confirm your roadmap, dive into The Ultimate Guide to Sales and Marketing Technology.
