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.”

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.

The increasing frequency and sophistication of these threats demand a more strategic approach to cybersecurity investment, yet many organisations continue to underestimate the financial consequences of a breach.

The financial toll of cybercrime can be divided into direct and indirect impacts. Direct costs include the immediate loss of revenue due to downtime. A business can grind to a halt in the aftermath of an attack, often requiring weeks to restore operations.

The high costs

The cost of recovery, including professional support to restore systems, investigate the breach, and work with regulators, is another major direct hit to the bottom line.

The indirect costs, however, can be just as devastating, if not more so. Many people do not understand how severe the indirect effects of a successful cyber compromise will have on the business.

The most immediate indirect impact is the erosion of trust among customers, partners, and the public. A loss of trust often leads to a significant loss of business, as customers may turn away permanently.

Further indirect costs arise from regulatory reporting requirements and the protective measures necessary to safeguard individuals affected by the breach.

These additional expenses can accumulate rapidly.

The true cost of a cyberattack extends far beyond ransom payments, regulatory fines, and recovery costs; it reaches into the personal lives of employees, affecting mental health and well-being.

A cyber-attack is extremely stressful to the business and those responsible for recovery, which can lead to burnout and prolonged stress-related absences from work.

The cybersecurity investment gap

Despite the mounting risk, many organisations continue to under-invest in cybersecurity. I see a disproportionate under-investment in relation to the risk of cybercrime. This mismatch between risk and investment is a critical issue for CFOs.

While some boards may approve increased spending on cybersecurity, this spending is often ineffective, with a focus on isolated solutions rather than a comprehensive strategy.

The problem is that many business leaders still view cybersecurity as a technology issue. Cybersecurity has nothing to do with technology, it is about managing digital risk through a structured, resilience-based approach.

Technology is only an enabler; true resilience comes from understanding the broader risks and implementing a strategic framework that covers all aspects of digital risk.

Minimising financial damage

Prevention, as the saying goes, is better than cure. For businesses, this means building a robust cyber resilience framework.

There is no way we will stop attackers trying to attack, but an effective framework can help businesses detect and respond to threats before they cause significant damage.

Security comes from visibility – resilience provides visibility, visibility gives us the capability to respond.

By ensuring total visibility across all parts of a cyber resilience framework, organisations can detect potential attacks early, limiting the financial damage. The sooner a threat is identified, the easier it is to contain, reducing the potential for widespread disruption.

Aligning cybersecurity with financial strategy

One of the key challenges for CFOs is aligning cybersecurity investments with their overall financial strategy.

The focus needs to shift from the cost of individual cybersecurity tools to the value of preventing cyber incidents in the first place.

Let’s rather focus on what your business does to make money. By understanding how cyberattacks can disrupt revenue streams and harm customer relationships, business leaders can better justify the necessary investment in cybersecurity.

The financial impact of a cyberattack is not limited to the cost of recovery. Most businesses will face at least two weeks of downtime, followed by months of ongoing disruption. During this time, businesses lose not only revenue but also market share, as competitors swoop in to capture dissatisfied customers.

In many cases, 30% of customers will no longer want to do business with a company that has been breached. By calculating these potential losses, businesses can gain a clearer picture of the true cost of cyber risk.

Incident response planning

A comprehensive incident response plan is essential for reducing the financial impact of cybercrime. Being prepared is crucial.

Regularly reviewing and testing incident response plans can help organisations respond more effectively when an attack occurs, reducing both the direct and indirect costs of a breach.

Building cyber resilience into the business also includes regular awareness training and cybersecurity drills.

These exercises help employees understand their role in protecting the business, creating a culture of vigilance that strengthens the organisation’s overall defences.

The rising cost of cybercrime is placing significant financial pressure on CFOs. While many organisations still under-invest in cybersecurity, the true cost of a breach – from lost revenue and reputational damage to regulatory fines and personal stress – far outweighs the expense of building a robust, resilience-based cybersecurity framework.

By shifting focus from technology solutions to strategic risk management, businesses can reduce their exposure to cyber threats and protect their bottom line.

The event, which is slated to hold at the Lagos Oriental Hotels on September 29, 2022, with its theme as “Creating A Digital Ecosystem In Nigeria: The Hurdles, The Gains”, will have the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami as the Lead Speaker.

Other partners for the event that promises to chart a way to sectorial challenges in the industry include Galaxy Backbone, 9mobile, SecureID, Rack Centre, Arravo Global Services and Phase 3 Telecoms.

Making the partnership announcement in Lagos, Mr. Chike Onwuegbuchi, the Chairman of NITRA, explained that the Conference is germane to the present realities in Nigeria as both the industry regulators and the supervisory Ministry are working assiduously to set Nigeria on the apex list of digitally empowered countries, and make it a forerunner in global technology index.

Mr. Onwuegbuchi noted that the partnership with these organisations will add pep to the event as they will bring their wealth of knowledge in Cloud Computing, financial security, Social engineering, Data Center, telecommunication, and other relevant fields to the conference, and join the dialogue on the growth ingredients needed to drive the country towards a digitized society.

“Specifically, the Forum will offer stakeholders the opportunity of reassessing and reinvigorating some policies to make maximum impact in the growth of ICT in Nigeria. This is a growth conference, and stakeholders will be allowed to speak out on what the growth indices should be,” Mr. Onwuegbuchi highlighted.

Recent partners to join the event train are SecureID, one of Africa’s industry leaders in card manufacturing, personalization/fulfillment, and digital solutions; Arravo, a leading global systems integrator and managed services provider; and Phase3 Telecom, an indigenous aerial fiber optic network infrastructure provider, providing connectivity, network management and data storage services to wholesale, enterprise and retail customers across West Africa.

Others are Galaxy Backbone, a public enterprise of the Federal Government of Nigeria incorporated with the primary mandate of setting up and operating a unified ICT infrastructure platform that addresses the connectivity, transversal and other technology imperatives for MDAs and private companies; and Rack Centre, a carrier neutral Tier III Certified data centre focuses solely on providing best in class data centre colocation services, and unrestricted interconnect between carriers and customers.

Expected to be at the event are the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami; the EVC of the NCC, Prof Umar Garba Danbatta; the DG of NITDA, Mallam Inuwa Kashifu Abdullahi, CEOs of other government and private ICT companies, the Media including the full membership of NITRA and other stakeholders in the industry, including COOs, CIOs, CFOs, CROs and CCOs.

In fact, such has the pervasiveness of technology and the cloud become, that CIOs can no longer lay claim to being the sole custodians of this responsibility.

In fact, a partnership between tech and finance is crucial if a company is to stay relevant. Think of it as sneakers meet suits for a brave new world led by innovative companies. 

If anything, CFOs must become digital leaders themselves as the finance role is reinvented given how rapidly artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation, and cloud have started to become integrated into every aspect of a business. And when you throw in the potential of real-time data analytics thanks to the high-performance compute capabilities of cloud, CFOs have a wealth of insights available to them to help shape the future business strategy. But if this is to yield maximum benefit for an organisation regardless of its size or industry sector, the partnership between CIO and CFO must be a smooth one.

Tech insights

The cloud is no longer something only the CIO needs to take responsibility for. Modern CFOs fulfil a critical role in helping get organisations cloud-ready. Their understanding of the business, its unique challenges, and where to focus efforts to enhance operations must be combined with a technology know-how and an awareness of where the evolution to the cloud can deliver the best returns.

If a CIO is seen as being driven by technology, it is the CFO that needs to take that and inject it with financial analysis and insights to understand where the best return for the investment can benefit the organisation the most.

So, moving beyond someone as just signs the cheques, the modern CFO takes their own technology understanding, combine it with input from the CIO, and then targets the best areas for the highest return on investment.

There is no getting around the fact that the CFO will always be guided by the numbers. But what is different for the modern, cloud-ready organisation, is that this role is now influenced by the potential of technology and an increased willingness to explore risks (within reason) that can transform into revenue-generating opportunities.

All about the cloud

As recently as 2018, Deloitte research highlighted how CFOs are sceptical when it comes to spendings based on the promise of savings especially as how it pertains to the transition to the cloud. However, the research at the time did highlight the importance of finance needing a seat at the table when it comes to this kind of technology decision-making.

Fast forward to the present and the disruption caused by events of the past two years have illustrated the need for ‘bean counters’ and ‘tech geeks’ to work together if the organisation had any hope of surviving.

Hybrid work, digital transformation, multi-and hybrid clouds, are just some of the ways in which things have evolved since the onset of the pandemic.

Perhaps more critically, companies have finally realised they can no longer afford to keep their data in siloes. If anything, it will be the CFOs and CIOs that become the stewards of that data as they work with the rest of the C-suite to bring improved agility into traditional environments.

While nobody is advocating a rip-and-replace approach to legacy solutions and infrastructure, the CFO is no longer focused on ‘sweating the asset’.

Instead, they are looking at how to enhance what has been put in place through cloud-based solutions that can bridge the gap between the old and the new.

The proverbial secret sauce to this lies in a cloud adoption/operating model that goes beyond just technology but holistically looks at the business overall. Being willing to look beyond crunching the numbers and apply innovative technology where it makes business sense to do so will result in a new agility being introduced to the business.

Taking and improving what works and evolving what is not effective require the best efforts from both the CFO and the CIO.

The key to everything

There is no getting around the fact that the CFO is the critical cog in any successful cloud migration or adoption project. Having the finance department involved in all technology projects is no longer the challenge it was in the past.

Far from becoming a bottleneck, finance can be an enabler to drive efficiencies faster. This can only happen if the CFO gets involved on the ground floor and provide the necessary input that can help shape the direction of the cloud project.

And then when discussions turn to licensing, consumption costs, and the like, the CFO will be better able to make a more informed appraisal than if it is just something that drops in their lap when they need to sign off on a migration.

CFOs therefore need to dust off their own sneakers and start wearing them with their suits as they become more technologically-informed and partner with CIOs to transform their companies into cloud-forward businesses.

In these necessary conversations, Führ said, it is vital that leadership teams do not lose sight of their organisation’s overall transformation objectives.

Ultimately, Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies are tools that should be considered as one part of the transformation journey and not all technological advances are necessarily useful for all businesses.

In her words: “Amidst the pace of technological change, it’s up to CFOs and other members of management to navigate how organisations should deploy funding for digital transformation to achieve the best possible return on investment.

“For mid-sized corporates especially, the challenge of balancing business requirements and aligning long-term organisational goals is compounded by the need to use resources as prudently as possible.

“Making sure that finance fits in with the rest of the digital transformation journey, has access to funding, the right skill set to assist with the change, all while ensuring the finance team is able to join on the journey is very important – and easier said than done.

“The aim shouldn’t be to transform simply for the sake of it, but to transform with specific, goal-orientated objectives in mind such as faster, more accurate and value adding reporting”.

Führ also hinted In a medium size corporate, there just isn’t room to implement the wrong tools because of the potential resource impact.

Continuing, Führ said “Change management will be important to ensure the effective adoption of technological changes. This is a great opportunity to partner with HR to ensure adoption within the team.

“Of course, many of the newest technologies that look set to make an even bigger impact on business and ways of working are still at an early stage but will evolve rapidly. Rather than seeing this scenario as a threat to job security, it should be viewed as an opportunity for leadership, strategic thinking, risk management thinking, critical thinking, problem solving, both in finance and the rest of the organisation, to really thrive.

“Adaptability and agility are key competencies as technology becomes entrenched in every aspect of business and organisations look for ways to differentiate themselves from their competitors. STEM education is the cornerstone of what will be required to navigate through Fourth Industrial Revolution”.

She highlighted: “Investing in tech education is something that I am particularly passionate about”.

Many CFOs are in the position to decide or influence the decision on where to spend socio-economic development funding.

“With Fourth Industrial Revolution gaining momentum, funding for education in these key areas should form part of all organisations’ socio-economic development investment agenda, and better still, a practical and long-term strategy to truly enabling digital transformation and 4IR”, Führ concluded.