01.
Q2 Marketing Wynter Index: 58.4

MARKETING INVESTMENT HOLDS STEADY AS TEAMS CHASE PIPELINE, AI VISIBILITY & OPERATING LEVERAGE

• B2B marketing activity remained expansionary in Q2 2026, with the composite Wynter Index holding nearly flat at 58.4, down slightly from 58.6 in Q1 but still well above Q4 2025’s 55.6 reading. The headline is stability, but the underlying story is sharper: teams are still investing, just more selectively.
• Paid media is the strongest component in the Index this quarter, rising to 66.7 as companies look for near-term pipeline leverage. Software spend remains firmly expansionary at 61.9, but cooled from Q1’s peak as teams shift from adding tools to consolidating stacks and reallocating around AI.
• Performance-to-plan crossed back above neutral at 50.3, but only barely. The market is still split almost evenly between teams ahead of plan and teams behind. Headcount also cooled, falling to 56.8, while agency and fractional spend improved to 56.3 as external support demand became more selective.
• The Q2 story is "reallocation cycle." Marketing leaders are under pressure to deliver pipeline now while rebuilding the system that creates it: AI workflows, AI-mediated search visibility, brand trust, conversion discipline, and measurable ROI.
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Q2 PRIORITIES: PIPELINE PRESSURE, AI URGENCY, AND THE SEARCH FOR TRUST

• Pipeline remains the unquestioned #1 priority, with 75.5% of participants citing pipeline, demand generation, revenue, acquisition, or opportunity creation as a top-three focus, up from 72% in Q1 and 66% in Q4 2025.
• AI is the biggest mover in the priority data. More than half of participants (53%) named AI, AEO, GEO, automation, or AI search visibility as a top priority, up sharply from 39.5% in Q1.
• Brand, positioning, and trust-building also continued to rise, reaching 48.5% of participants, up from 45.5% in Q1. Marketers are treating brand less like an awareness layer and more like infrastructure for differentiation, conversion, and visibility in AI-mediated search.
• Efficiency remains close behind at 46.5%, but the mandate is getting more specific. Teams are not just trying to “do more with less.” They are trying to make more of the existing motion convert through better attribution, funnel velocity, website performance, lifecycle programs, and operational discipline.
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02.
Performance to revenue plan: 50.3 (Expansion)

• Performance-to-plan crossed back above neutral in Q2, rising from 49.0 in Q1 to 50.3. But this is a narrow improvement, not a breakout. The market is almost evenly split: 34.0% of teams are ahead of plan, 32.5% are on plan, and 33.5% are behind.
• The company-size story reversed from last quarter. In Q1, mid-market companies led the recovery; in Q2, they slipped below neutral at 48.1. Enterprise companies carried the improvement, rising to 54.5, with 41.8% ahead of plan.
• Funding type shows the sharpest pressure point. PE-backed companies are the clear drag at 45.5, with 41.6% behind plan. VC-backed companies recovered to neutral, while public and bootstrapped companies performed better.
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03.
Full-time marketing headcount: 56.8 (Expansion)

• Marketing headcount remains in expansion territory, but Q1’s hiring momentum cooled. The sub-index fell from 61.0 to 56.8, with fewer teams planning to add full-time marketers and more expecting reductions.
• Nearly half of participants (49.5%) expect no change in full-time marketing headcount this quarter. Another 32.0% expect headcount to increase, down from 37% in Q1, while 18.5% expect reductions.
• The company-size split is modest: mid-market companies are slightly more expansionary at 57.9, while enterprise sits at 54.5. The sharper divide is by funding type. PE-backed companies are the most aggressive hiring segment at 61.0, despite weaker performance-to-plan, while public companies moved into contraction at 46.4.
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04.
Ads & paid media spend: 66.7 (Expansion)

• Paid media is the strongest component in the Q2 Index, rising from 64.25 in Q1 to 66.7. This is notable because paid showed up far less often as a top-three strategic priority, but budgets are still moving into it.
• Among companies with paid media spend, 46.0% expect budgets to increase, 41.4% expect spend to hold flat, and only 12.6% expect cuts. The expansion is strongest among mid-market and VC-backed companies, suggesting teams under pipeline pressure are using paid as a near-term demand lever.
• The channel data shows why this is not a simple “more ads” story. LinkedIn and paid social are the top paid bet at 45.5%, followed by Google, paid search, and SEM at 35.5%. But those same channels also appear in the cut column, as teams prune underperforming campaigns.
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05.
Software spend: 61.9 (Expansion)

• Software spend remains firmly in expansion territory, but Q2 looks less like a new-tool surge and more like a reallocation cycle. The sub-index fell from 64.75 in Q1 to 61.9, as fewer teams increased spend and more held budgets flat.
• The biggest shift is not a rise in cuts. Reductions actually fell to 11.7%. The change is that fewer teams are adding: 35.5% expect software budgets to increase, down from 45% in Q1, while 52.8% expect spend to stay the same.
• AI dominates where new software dollars are going. Among participants who specified investment categories, 72.4% mentioned AI, automation, LLMs, agentic workflows, or AI-powered GTM tools. But AI also shows up in the cut logic, as teams replace legacy tools, consolidate subscriptions, and retire software that no longer proves value.
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06.
Agency, consultant and fractional spend: 56.3 (Expansion)

• Agency, consultant, and fractional spend improved in Q2, rising from 53.8 in Q1 to 56.3. Most teams are still holding steady: 52.1% expect no change in agency or fractional spend, while 30.2% expect increases and 17.7% expect cuts. The category is expanding, but not broadly surging.

• Company size shows a clear split. Mid-market companies are more likely to increase external support, with a diffusion score of 59.1. Enterprise companies sit barely above neutral at 50.8, with higher cut rates and more caution.
• The strongest signal comes from bootstrapped companies, which posted the highest funding-type score at 65.0. Leaner teams appear to be using outside specialists as flexible capacity where they cannot or do not want to add full-time headcount.
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07.
Other insights of note

Brand-prioritizing teams are outperforming

This is one of the sharpest correlation nuggets. Participants who named brand, positioning, awareness, differentiation, or narrative as a top priority had a performance-to-plan diffusion score of 55.7, compared with 45.1 among those who did not.

They were also more likely to be ahead of plan: 40.2% vs. 28.2%. This does not prove brand causes outperformance, but it strongly suggests that healthier teams are not treating brand as optional.

Customer expansion is the quiet outperformer

Only 18% of participants cited customer expansion, retention, upsell, cross-sell, or churn as a top priority. But those teams were dramatically more likely to be ahead of plan.

Their performance-to-plan score was 69.4, compared with 46.0 among everyone else. Nearly two-thirds of customer-expansion-focused teams were ahead of plan (63.9%). This could be a very strong “quiet signal” insight.

AI is now both an investment thesis and a replacement thesis

AI appeared in 53% of top-three priorities and in 72.4% of specified software investment categories. But AI also appeared on the cut side: 27.0% of specified software-cut responses mentioned legacy tools being replaced by AI or built internally.

This is a great Q2-specific insight. AI is no longer just getting incremental budget. It is becoming the justification for cutting older tools, point solutions, and some vendor spend.

Paid media is expanding, but channel trust is fragile

Paid media spend is up, with a 66.7 diffusion score. But the channel data shows how conditional that spend has become.

LinkedIn/paid social is the top paid bet (45.5%) and paid search/Google/SEM is second (35.5%). Yet those same channels also appear heavily in the cut column: paid social/LinkedIn at 18.0%, paid search/Google/PPC at 16.0%. The story is not channel abandonment; it is ruthless channel-by-channel ROI scrutiny.

PE-backed companies are investing through underperformance

PE-backed companies are the weakest performance-to-plan segment at 45.5, with 41.6% behind plan. But they are not simply cutting.

They lead full-time headcount expansion at 61.0, lead software spend among major funding types at 63.8, and remain expansionary on paid media at 66.2. The read: PE-backed marketers appear to be investing to close the gap, not retreating from it.
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08.
About the Wynter Index

The Wynter Index is a quarterly diffusion gauge of B2B marketing activity, designed to give senior leaders, vendors and other interested parties a clean view of momentum in spend, hiring, and execution across B2B SaaS. Data is gathered using a Wynter survey of 200 B2B marketing leaders.

How the Wynter Index is calculated
The Wynter Index headline number is the equal-weighted average of the five core components: performance to revenue plan, FTE headcount change, paid advertising change, software investment change, and agency/consultant spend change.

The Index and each sub-index is a diffusion score rounded to 1 decimal with 50 representing no change. Note that diffusion measures breadth of change, not size. 52-55 = mild expansion; >55 = solid expansion; <48 = contraction.

Field window and participant composition
This survey was conducted in April 2026 with a participant panel of 200 B2B SaaS marketing leaders based in the United States and Canada.

(n = 200; CMO 33, VP/SVP 99, Sr. Director/Director/Head of 68)‍

Segment definitions‍

“Medium” refers to companies with 51-199 employees; “Mid-market” to companies with 200-999 employees; “Enterprise” to 1000+ employees.

Seasonal adjustment

The Wynter Index is not seasonally-adjusted. We will review this after ≥8 waves.

Revisions and adjustments‍

We correct material errors and may restate prior readings if methods change. Any revisions or changes will be noted first at wynter.com/index and in subsequent Wynter Index reports.

Data access, licensing and citation‍

Wynter Index snapshot (headline + sub-indices), commentary and data are free for editorial use with attribution. Commercial use requires permission.

You can find current and past Wynter Index data, including all survey questions and participant responses, at wynter.com/index.

Press & analyst contacts‍

Please reach out by email at hello@wynter.com.

About Wynter‍

Wynter is the fast alternative to traditional B2B market research: an on-demand platform enabling professionals to quickly gather insights from verified target buyers. Wynter’s self-serve platform combines brand tracking, surveys, message testing, preference tests, and more, leveraging a panel of over 80,000 verified B2B decision-makers filterable by role, seniority, industry, location, and company size. Results are typically delivered within 48 hours, summarized into clear, actionable findings. Learn more at wynter.com.

Join the Wynter participant panel
Apply to join Wynter at wynter.com/participants/join.

09.
Get the raw Wynter Index data

You can view the entire question set and all 200 responses at Wynter here.

To get the full dataset in CSV or Markdown, tap "Download" at the top right.