How CMOs Can Turn CFOs into Champions for Marketing Investment
If you're a CMO trying to secure more marketing budget, chances are you’ve heard the question: “What’s the ROI?” - and not in a casual tone.
The truth is, CFOs aren’t the enemy of marketing - they’re the gatekeepers of growth. And if we want to unlock real, scalable investment in marketing, we need to speak their language.
Fortunately, our new report (plug!), United in Growth: Transforming Shareholder Value Through CFO-CMO Collaboration, gives us exactly the tools to do that.
This report is more than a call for collaboration, it’s a data-driven playbook showing how CFO-CMO alignment directly accelerates business performance. If you’ve ever wanted proof that marketing is a growth engine and not just a cost center - this is it.
Here are the key stats, stories, and insights that every CMO should have in their toolkit when heading into budget conversations with finance.
1. Marketing Drives Growth. Full Stop.
One of the most powerful takeaways from the report is this: 40% of yearly business growth is directly attributable to marketing, based on Analytic Partners’ ROI Genome® data. That’s not a soft metric. That’s a bottom-line impact your CFO can get behind.
Still, many organisations haven’t fully internalised this reality. Why? Because they haven’t seen the data for themselves. The report highlights that brands with strong analytics capabilities are much more likely to sway internal skeptics and clearly demonstrate marketing’s contribution to revenue.
If your CFO is still on the fence, it might not be about belief - it might be about visibility.
2. Cutting Spend Comes at a Cost
The pandemic and recent economic uncertainty pushed many brands to pull back on marketing - sometimes completely. And what happened? Sales dropped.
The report references brands that “went dark” on advertising and saw sales declines that tracked closely with reduced ad spend. These real-world “experiments,” while unintentional, made one thing painfully clear: marketing and sales are intrinsically linked.
If your CFO is considering trimming your budget, share this insight. The cost of pulling back may far outweigh the savings.
3. Brand-Building Is a Long-Term Asset, Not a Luxury
Performance marketing has been dominating budgets for years, largely because it’s easier to measure. But that’s led to an imbalance.
According to the report, companies with well-balanced brand and performance programmes see ROIs 90% higher than those that focus too heavily on performance alone. That’s a huge gap - and a compelling argument for restoring balance.
The report uses a vivid analogy: brand is like the roots of a tree, providing unseen but essential support for long-term growth. Performance marketing is the fruit - visible and immediate, but dependent on the strength of those roots.
Your CFO might gravitate toward performance because it's trackable. But when you show that brand investments lay the groundwork for future returns AND drive higher ROI overall, you’ll have a stronger case for a healthy, long-term budget mix.
4. Aligning Metrics Is Essential - Not Optional
One of the biggest sources of friction between CFOs and CMOs isn’t disagreement—it’s misalignment. Marketers often lean on ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment), which isolates the incremental impact of campaigns. CFOs, however, evaluate ROI through a broader lens that includes overhead, staffing, and capital costs.
It’s not about choosing one or the other — it’s about building a shared view of performance. The report underscores that top-performing organisations don’t insist on a single metric. Instead, they establish transparency around how each metric is defined, used, and tracked—then align on shared benchmarks.
Think of ROMI as your agile, in-flight GPS and ROI as the annual roadmap. Both matter—but only if you’re navigating to the same destination. When finance and marketing speak in a common measurement language, it opens the door to better decisions, faster buy-in, and more strategic investment.
So yes, different metrics exist - and that’s not a problem. Lack of clarity is. Fix that, and the collaboration gets a whole lot easier.
5. Measurement Must Be Commercial, Not Just Channel-Based
To build trust with finance, CMOs need to go beyond campaign reporting. The report outlines how top-performing companies use a commercial measurement approach - one that connects marketing outcomes to broader business KPIs like sales, profit, and market share.
This approach looks at all demand drivers, not just marketing channels, and delivers granular insights that support both strategic planning and real-time decisions.
Bottom line: the more your measurement system reflects the language and priorities of the CFO, the more marketing will be seen as a strategic lever and not a discretionary expense.
6. Trust Is the Secret Ingredient
Data matters. But so does transparency.
The report urges CMOs to build trust through regular, transparent reporting cycles. That means having shared dashboards, aligned KPIs, and frequent check-ins between marketing and finance. In many successful organisations, a senior finance leader attends marketing leadership meetings and vice versa.
These habits don’t just smooth communication. They turn alignment into action.
Final Thought:
Collaboration Isn’t a Buzzword. It’s a Business Imperative.
As the report makes clear, the most successful companies today aren’t just aligning CMOs and CFOs on paper - they’re embedding collaboration into their operating model. That means agreeing on success metrics, establishing commercial measurement practices, validating performance, and iterating together in real time.
This isn’t just about improving marketing ROI. It’s about transforming shareholder value.
📞 Ready to strengthen your CFO partnership? Contact Analytic Partners to learn how our expertise, tools, and data-driven approach can help you drive growth together via www.analyticpartners.com.