The good news for CFOs and CMOs is that marketing has become significantly more measurable as more customer activity occurs on digital channels. The bad news is that there is still a chasm between the way marketers want to spend their budget and the way that CFOs believe budgets should be spent.
OPINION: Better Marketing Metrics CMOs Can Give CFOs
While a CMO wants to allocate budget to branding and other upper funnel tactics, CFOs focus on the bottom of the funnel where it’s easy to see purchase activity. CMOs know that branding and other activity is important but may struggle to prove to CFOs how early stage marketing actually drives more lower funnel activity compared to spending more downstream.
OPINION: Better Marketing Metrics CMOs Can Give CFOs
It’s no wonder that only 22 percent of CMOs say that their relationship with CFOs is truly collaborative. One thing that can help: if CMOs show CFOs how they can deliver a return on their budget using different metrics. This not only empowers CMOs, but it allows them to create an approach to measurement and reporting that illustrates the incremental value of different marketing tactics up and down the funnel, aligning the two teams around company growth and profitability.
OPINION: Better Marketing Metrics CMOs Can Give CFOs
Stop Focusing On The Last Action
OPINION: Better Marketing Metrics CMOs Can Give CFOs
Many CFOs believe that measurement approaches like last-touch attribution are focused on “return on ad spend,” or ROAS. CFOs often connect the dots between purchases and the most recent activity before the purchase. For example, affiliate pages are often the last touchpoint before a sale. A CFO who wants their marketing team to spend more on affiliate marketing is making a couple of critical mistakes.
OPINION: Better Marketing Metrics CMOs Can Give CFOs
First, the idea that the last action “caused” a sale is faulty. In many cases, the person would make the purchase either way. Second, lower funnel activity like visiting affiliate sites only captures a fraction of the total addressable…
OPINION: Better Marketing Metrics CMOs Can Give CFOs
..