In 2026, performance discussions are no longer limited to marketing teams. Investment decisions now demand a shift in commercial decision-making: integrating marketing, analytics, finance, and executive leadership.
At this year’s NorthStar Connect, more than 100 leaders representing Marketing, Analytics, Media, and Finance teams from over 45 brands came together to discuss a common challenge: how to make better business decisions in an increasingly complex environment.
This group alone accounted for close to 1 trillion in revenue and nearly $30B in media spend. Although the brands differed by industry and organizational structure, the conversations consistently revealed the same reality: the issue isn’t more data, but rather better decisioning.
Business leaders are navigating increasing complexity. The market is noisy, pressure is intense, and everyone—from marketing to finance to the C-suite—is being asked to move faster with answers they can justify.
This was the major challenge we addressed this year: how to transition from measurement to a decision-making system that creates lasting value. The three main takeaways?
Commercial Decisioning Is Becoming a Competitive Advantage
One of the clearest themes throughout NorthStar Connect was the continued evolution from measuring marketing performance to informing enterprise decision-making. The conversations are no longer centered solely on media performance or campaign optimization. Organizations are asking questions like:
- How should we allocate investment across the business?
- What is the trade-off between short-term performance and long-term growth?
- How can we make decisions that hold up not just in marketing reviews, but in finance discussions and boardrooms?
The organizations making the greatest progress aren’t simply measuring more. They’re creating common frameworks, shared metrics, and aligned objectives that connect decision-making across the business.
This shift was reinforced throughout NorthStar Connect by findings from the 2026 State of Commercial Decisioning Survey and ROI Genome®. Together, they point to an important evolution in the market: organizations are moving beyond relying on Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA) and Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) as standalone measurement approaches and toward Commercial Analytics as a more comprehensive framework for understanding commercial performance and informing enterprise decision-making.
As a result, leaders are increasingly evaluating the impact of factors both within and beyond marketing—from media investments and promotions to pricing, sponsorships, competitive activity, and macroeconomic conditions. The organizations that can connect these drivers to commercial outcomes are better positioned to make more informed decisions across the business.
Discussions throughout the event spanned AI, emerging media channels, influencer marketing, video, and evolving consumer behavior. Yet the focus wasn’t on chasing the latest trend. It was on understanding how these investments contribute to commercial outcomes and how organizations can make more confident decisions in an increasingly complex environment.
The takeaway was clear: commercial impact—not just marketing impact—has become the new standard for decision-making.
Adoption Remains the Hardest Challenge
If there was one thing NorthStar Connect reinforced, it’s this: building analytics capabilities is no longer the primary challenge.
Driving adoption is.
More specifically, creating alignment across teams and ensuring insights become part of how organizations operate every day.
The organizations seeing the strongest results have shifted from treating analytics as a specialized function to embedding it into planning processes, investment decisions, forecasting, and executive conversations.
Many attendees spoke about the importance of creating a common language across marketing, finance, analytics, and leadership teams. Having technology is no longer enough.
One comment from a customer stuck with me: waiting for perfect data is usually just a slower way of making the same mistake. The goal isn’t perfection. It’s better decisions, made consistently.
That mindset changes everything. It transforms analytics from something teams defend into something they rely on.
Speed Matters – But Trust Matters More
Leaders are expected to respond to changing market conditions, shifting consumer behavior, competitive pressures, and executive demands in real time. But throughout the event, attendees repeatedly reinforced a critical point: speed without trust creates risk.
Several leaders shared stories about moving too quickly with insights that weren’t fully understood, aligned, or decision-ready. The result wasn’t better decision-making—it was lost credibility.
The organizations making the greatest progress aren’t necessarily the ones reacting to every signal the fastest. They’re the ones that have established trusted frameworks, clear methodologies, and shared definitions that allow teams to move quickly when it matters most.
Trust is what transforms analytics from information into action. It creates confidence across marketing, finance, analytics, and executive leadership that decisions are grounded in a common understanding of the business.
The lesson was clear: speed matters, but trust matters more.
The Energy in The Room
The presentations at NorthStar Connect delivered valuable insights and real-world success stories that sparked conversations throughout the event.
From building trust in analytics and driving adoption to making better commercial decisions in a dynamic environment, attendees openly shared experiences, perspectives, and lessons learned.
In a world where so much of our work happens virtually, there is real value in bringing people together. The combination of compelling content and candid dialogue created an energy that could be felt throughout the event. It turned NorthStar Connect into a forum for meaningful exchange and stronger connections across the industry.
