A marketing planning hierarchy is the cascading structure that connects company objectives to the marketing work that supports them. Each level represents a different scope of ownership and responsibility, from CEO-level objectives down to the plans that marketers work on.
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What a Planning Hierarchy Does
A planning hierarchy breaks down company objectives into progressively smaller, more tactical pieces of work. Leadership sets the top-level objective. Marketing executives cascade that objective into initiatives or directives. Marketing directors break initiatives into programs. Marketers turn programs into executable plans.
Each level owns a piece of the work, and each level's results roll up to support its parent level. Budgets, goals, and timelines flow from the top down. Results and outcomes roll from the bottom up. For example, a CEO's revenue objective becomes a CMO's directive, then a director's program, then the plans that campaign managers build.
Why Planning Hierarchies Matter
A planning hierarchy connects every piece of marketing work to the strategy behind it. Results roll up automatically, so executives see whether their objectives are on track. Campaign managers know which program their work belongs to and what results they're accountable for. Reviewers see what the work supports, which goals it targets, and which budget funds it before they approve anything.
Hierarchies Are Flexible, Not Fixed
You control how you structure the hierarchy. Define which levels exist, what they're called, and how they nest in the hierarchy. You also decide how many levels deep the hierarchy goes. The hierarchy adapts to how your company's marketing team works, rather than forcing the team into a predefined structure.
Control which levels can roll up to which other levels. For example, set up a hierarchy, such as Objective, Initiative, Program, and Plan. Most of the time, a plan rolls up to a program, and a program rolls up to an initiative. But the hierarchy also supports a plan rolling up directly to an initiative, skipping the program level entirely. Skip-level flexibility eliminates placeholder records required to satisfy a rigid structure. For example, a team can roll a pilot plan straight up to an initiative, with no program in between.
Control Who Creates Work at a Level
A hierarchy also controls who creates work at each level, not just how work rolls up. By default, anyone with permission to create marketing programs can create them at any level. When a level needs tighter control, add allowed creators to it. An allowed creator can be an individual user, a public group, or a profile. After you add allowed creators, only those users can create programs at that level. Adding an allowed creator grants permission only to create programs at that level. It doesn't grant permission to view, edit, or delete the programs at that level. This way, you control who adds new work without changing access to existing programs.
One Company, Multiple Hierarchies
Create multiple hierarchies for the entire company. Different business units, geographies, or teams can operate with their own hierarchies that match how they work. Each team structures its hierarchy independently, and all of them roll up into company-wide reporting.