2026 is right around the corner!
For Marketing Operations pros, having a solid plan that’s ready to go makes all the difference when the year kicks off.
But the challenge isn’t just building a solid plan; it’s building one that resonates with the priorities your CMO and leadership team actually care about.
So what should MOPs folks focus on when planning for the year ahead? Here’s what leadership will want to see at a high level.
1. Predictable Pipeline
Pipeline uncertainty is one of the biggest concerns for your leadership team. Most companies struggle with foundational questions around their buying personas, purchase timing, and the length of the buying process. And when these fundamentals aren’t nailed down, forecasting becomes guesswork.
When you have the right measurement structure in place (tracking everything from lead creation to MQL to opportunity to won), you can backtrack through your conversion rates by channel to determine exactly what’s needed to meet targets.
For example, if your MQL-to-opportunity conversion rate is approximately 10%, you need about 1,000 MQLs to close 100 deals. Similarly, if your lead-to-MQL conversion rate is approximately 25%, that means you need about 25,000 new leads to get there. This kind of structured thinking with tangible metrics is exactly what resonates with leadership. Your plan should include a process for improving (or implementing) this type of tracking throughout your entire funnel.
2. Attribution Clarity
Achieving a predictable pipeline is only possible when you know where your wins are actually coming from.
Attribution is a deep topic with complex models (we won’t go into that here), but at a high level, attribution clarity means understanding which channels generate your best net-new leads, which ones convert to MQLs and opportunities, and where your marketing dollars are working hardest.
The value becomes clear when you compare channels. If you’re spending the same amount on two different ad platforms but one generates ten times more opportunities, the budget decision becomes straightforward.
Attribution clarity removes the guesswork from allocation decisions, and that’s something every C-suite appreciates.
3. AI Governance
AI is on every executive’s radar right now, and governance has become a major concern.
AI governance is complex. But at its core, it’s about ensuring your organization uses AI safely, ethically, legally, and effectively, while staying in control of risks and outcomes. It is crucial to boost customer trust, prevent legal violations, keep your business audit-ready, and reduce the risk of operational chaos.
Many organizations are finding that security and governance reviews for AI tools take weeks or even months to complete (this is completely natural and expected, given how new this space is).
But this also presents an opportunity: MOPs professionals who proactively address AI governance in 2026 plans with have a head start and will definitely stand out. AI implementation the right way, with an emphasis not only on productivity gains but proper security, safety, and privacy, is key.
4. Efficiency Gains and Automation ROI
Every budget request eventually comes down to ROI. If you’re asking leadership for $50,000 for a new tool, for example, their response will likely be primarily focused on how you’ll make that money back. Leadership will normally have no problem spending budget if the ROI is clearly demonstrated in a robust plan of action.
So, as a MOPs team, efficiency gains and automation initiatives need to be framed in terms of return on investment. When you tie your initiatives directly to revenue impact, you make it easier for leadership to say yes.
5. Data Quality Enabling GTM Strategies
We’ve said this many times before, but it’s more important now than ever:
Clean data is the foundation of everything else on this list.
Without it, pipelines become unpredictable, attribution models become unreliable, and your go-to-market strategies are built on shaky ground.
For example: If you mislabel the source of your leads, your main MQL-driving channel is incorrectly tagged. This means you’ll end up investing in the wrong place, wondering why results aren’t materializing. Data quality isn’t a technical nice-to-have; it’s a strategic necessity.
6. MOPs as Risk Management Insurance
Frame your MOPs team as the CMO’s “risk management insurance”.
What do we mean by that?
CMOs focus on pipeline, performance, and strategy. The only reason any of that moves is because MOPs keeps the engine stable, connected, and compliant on a daily basis.
We are the people who prevent the silent failures: broken integrations, bad data flows, sync delays, deliverability issues, API limits, rogue automations, and privacy violations that can ruin a quarter before anyone even sees the warning signs.
And risk management is not only technical. MOPs protects the brand by making sure emails land in the inbox, consent and regional privacy rules are respected, and every system behaves predictably.
Without this foundation, campaigns fail, reporting collapses, and the business loses credibility.
MOPs is the safety net and the operational guardrail that keeps marketing performing and keeps the company out of trouble.
If you frame your 2026 initiatives around these six areas, you’ll have a plan that speaks directly to what leadership cares about.
That connection between your work and executive priorities is what makes the difference when budget conversations come around.
If you need help putting together your plan or reaching your MOPs goals for the year ahead, reach out to us. We’d love to chat!