Finance Takes The Lead As Firms Align Marketing Budgets With Measurable Business Outcomes

Marketing purists

For the marketing purists, the idea of being measured on financial metrics can be a tough pill to swallow.

Research from consulting firm Deloitte’s highlights that some companies are embedding marketing measurement teams under finance to better align marketing and financial performance metrics, with higher-growth businesses far more likely to have this kind of C-suite alignment. With global marketing budgets stabilising at about 7.7% of company revenue, the space to make mistakes is thin; every Rand must show a path to profit and payback.

South Africa’s context strengthens the case for tighter finance–marketing alignment. Digital’s share of our ad market has surged, with internet advertising up 21.5% year-on-year to R17.7bn and now representing ~40% of total advertising. In theory, that makes marketing more measurable and more accountable if you bring the right tools and language to the table.

What changes when marketing reports to finance? First, capital allocation becomes explicit. Finance teams expect investment cases, not campaigns. The conversation moves from channels to unit economics: customer acquisition cost (CAC), lifetime value (LTV), gross-profit payback and churn. Second, measurement matures. As privacy concerns (?) curtails user-level tracking, organisations are reviving marketing-mix modelling (MMM) and structured experiments to quantify incrementality across channels and guide quarterly reallocation.

Third, governance tightens. South Africa’s POPIA regime requires opt-in consent for electronic direct marketing, and the Advertising Regulatory Board (ARB) Code demands that objective claims be substantiated before publication, expect finance to insist on audit trails for both.

The upside of a finance-anchored model is a clearer line of sight from spend to enterprise value. Under King IV, boards are responsible for integrated thinking and reporting; linking brand and demand metrics to financial outcomes strengthens that narrative and reduces the “marketing as a cost centre” perception.

The obvious risk is short-termism—planning marketing only to match financial reporting cycles. Effectiveness tends to peak when budgets strike the right balance between long-term brand building and short-term activation, with the exact ratio varying by category. Finance leadership should establish this balance as a non-negotiable guardrail, even while driving for quicker returns.

How to sell the value using CFO language. Open with a single sentence: “We convert R1 of marketing into RX gross profit within Y months while lowering future CAC and churn.” Then show three numbers only: (1) payback period by major line item; (2) LTV/CAC and CAC trend vs last quarter; (3) brand/activation split with an ESOV rationale, so the board sees how today’s spend protects tomorrow’s margin. Back this with MMM outputs, not last-click reports.

Operating model that works in SA firms:

As CFOs demand more accountability from marketing, the tension is real. But it doesn’t have to be destructive, handled well, it can actually sharpen both sides.

One idea is to set up a growth council led jointly by the CFO and CMO. The point isn’t another committee for the sake of it, but a forum where the rules of engagement are clear: how much of the budget goes to brand versus sales, what compliance boxes need to be ticked, and where money should move each month. When the two functions sit together like this, it turns accountability into alignment.

Budgets also need structure. We can look to growth envelopes. Protect the brand spend so pricing power and long-term acquisition costs are defended. Run a performance pool with stage-gates, and carve out a small pot for testing new ideas, whether that’s AI tools, retail media or connected TV. Then be ruthless about reallocating every quarter: shift money from the weakest lines into the strongest ones.

Measurement can’t just be one-dimensional. Finance cares about revenue, margins, payback and cash conversion. Marketing cares about awareness, consideration, pipeline and retention. Both matter. A dual-horizon scorecard forces those conversations and makes the trade-offs transparent.

And don’t forget compliance. Build it into the workflow, don’t tack it on at the end. Keep consent records aligned to POPIA, and make sure every campaign has evidence to back its claims under the ARB Code. It saves headaches later.

At the end of the day, moving marketing under finance isn’t about squeezing the creativity out of it. It’s about applying capital discipline and speaking the same language the rest of the business uses. Get that balance right and you change the conversation from “what can we cut?” to “where can we double down without damaging the brand?” That’s the mindset that will separate the firms who thrive in the next cycle from those that tread water.