Marketing is far more than just creative ads or social media buzz—it’s a measurable driver of business growth.
Yet many Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) still face an uphill battle when trying to convince their Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) that marketing is not merely a cost centre, but a strategic revenue generator. In regions like sub-Saharan Africa, this disconnect is even more pronounced.
With 40 percent of all advertising spending in Nigeria expected to shift to digital channels by 2029, the pressure is on for marketing leaders to demonstrate clear, quantifiable business value.
In my journey working with diverse marketing teams, I’ve found that a handful of targeted, actionable steps can improve communication between CMOs and CFOs.
Here are practical tips and tools that have proven effective in enhancing marketing strategies and demonstrating true business value—turning initiatives into measurable drivers without claiming to have all the answers.
1. Rethinking Measurement: From Clicks to Conversions
For many, the success of a marketing campaign has traditionally been measured in impressions, click-throughs, or video views. While these metrics offer insight into reach and engagement, the action of a video view may not necessarily lead to revenue for the business.
Modern marketing demands a measurement framework that goes beyond surface-level data. This is where a combination of incrementality, attribution, and marketing mix modelling (MMM) comes into play.
Incrementality is the process of determining how much a particular marketing effort boosts sales that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
Think of it this way: if you invest in a billboard or an online ad, incrementality testing (using tools like Campaign Experiments, Conversion Lift, or Search Lift) can reveal whether that campaign genuinely contributed to increased purchases or merely captured sales that would have occurred regardless.
Attribution works like detective work. It tracks the steps a customer takes along their journey—from seeing an ad to making a purchase—and assigns credit to each interaction.
Modern attribution models, such as data-driven attribution in Google Ads, help pinpoint which specific ad or interaction influenced the final decision.
This insight is crucial because it allows you to understand which channels or touchpoints are most effective in driving results.
Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM) involves analysing a range of data sources to understand how different marketing activities collectively contribute to business goals. Google’s very own MMM solution, set to be available soon to marketers, promises to simplify this process by offering deeper insights into the overall impact of your marketing mix.
When you combine these three elements—incrementality, attribution, and MMM—you create a robust framework that not only measures performance more accurately but also builds a compelling case for marketing as a key business driver.
2. Speaking the Language of Value
Once you’ve set up a modern measurement framework, the next step is communication. Too often, the dialogue between CMOs and CFOs is hampered by jargon or a focus on vanity metrics that don’t directly link to business outcomes. To bridge this gap, marketing leaders must “speak the language of value.”
- Align Marketing with Business Goals:
Start every campaign with a clear business objective—whether it’s boosting sales, enhancing brand loyalty. Ensure that every marketing activity, from the platforms you choose to the messaging you craft, directly supports that objective. - Clarify ROI at Every Stage:
Recognise that different stages of the marketing funnel deliver different types of value. For example, while brand awareness campaigns might not yield immediate sales, they lay the groundwork for future revenue by building trust and favourability. Setting clear ROI expectations at each stage helps CFOs understand how early investments translate into long-term gains. - Map the Consumer Journey:
Document the customer’s path from awareness to purchase. This mapping justifies your media choices and budget allocations by clearly linking each marketing action to a step in the consumer journey. - Monitor and Report Continuously:
Keep your CFO in the loop with regular updates that tie marketing activities back to your business objectives. Establish benchmarks from the outset so that performance can be tracked and strategies adjusted as needed.
3. Reframing Your Marketing Strategy for Greater Impact
Despite the best efforts of CMOs, many marketing teams struggle to demonstrate the full impact of their campaigns.
Only 41% of marketing leaders believe their companies are mature in performance measurement, highlighting a significant gap in strategy.
To overcome this, it’s time to reframe your marketing approach from the ground up. Start with your company’s overarching business objective and then translate that into measurable key performance indicators (KPIs).
This top-down approach ensures that every campaign, whether it’s on Search, YouTube, social media, or other digital channels, is designed with the end goal in mind.
For instance, if your company’s objective is to increase market share, your marketing strategy should include targeted campaigns that focus on both broad brand awareness and specific conversion metrics.
Each channel should have tailored messaging and clearly defined ROI metrics that can be easily explained to your finance team.
In practice, this means understanding the unique characteristics of each platform. For example, the audience on YouTube might respond to engaging, visual storytelling, while users on Search might be more responsive to direct calls-to-action.
By framing your marketing strategy around clear business goals and measurable outcomes, you transform marketing from a cost centre into a proven revenue driver.
This shift not only helps in gaining the trust of CFOs but also sets the stage for more strategic decision-making across the organisation.
4. Leveraging the Right Tools for Performance Tracking
No modern measurement framework is complete without the right set of performance tracking tools. Having accurate and timely data is paramount to demonstrating marketing effectiveness.
Tools to improve your conversion tracking right now:
- Track conversions, such as website purchases, form submissions, or event registration, using Google Ads Conversion Tags, Floodlight Tags and Google Analytics Key Events. These tools not only track the conversion, but also other details about the customer, such as the path to purchase, location, if they are a new or returning customer, or if the conversion met a value-based goal.
- Add offline conversion tracking to include the data from conversion events that can be harder to track otherwise, for example in-store purchases, interactions with call centres, or events on the way to a conversion such as moving through the sale process for car insurance.
Why measurement is a necessity for marketers in sub-Saharan Africa in 2025
The industry’s current climate feels like shifting tectonic plates: marketing budgets are shrinking, customer interactions across marketing channels are increasing and changing, and consumer behaviour is ever-evolving.
CMOs in sub-Saharan Africa have an opportunity to rebrand themselves as business critical in the eyes of the C-suite with a renewed ability to prove that marketing is aligned with business goals.
By embracing this transformation, you’ll not only earn your CFO’s confidence but also establish a future where every marketing decision is grounded in data, insights, and clear business value.
