Here’s how to prove marketing’s pipeline value & revenue impact to your CFO

By rsukhraj@hubspot.com (Ramona Sukhraj)

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Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) are wired to want proof, not promises. While we marketers light up at impressions, and engagement — excuse the stars in my eyes — CFOs focus on revenue, risk, and return.

This clash of professional love languages can create friction in budget conversations, performance reviews, and board meetings.

I’ve experienced this tension too many times to count, over the years. My teams knew that sales couldn’t have closed without our marketing, but with so many touchpoints and an evolving data climate, it became increasingly difficult to prove.

Thankfully, we’ve found our ways. This guide will share exactly how to use automated attribution reporting to show finance the metrics they want, bridge the communication gap between departments, and ultimately win the budget you deserve.

Table of Contents

Why does pipeline influence reporting matter?
What metrics do CFOs actually care about?
Which attribution models do CFOs prefer?
How to Show Marketing’s Impact to the CFO Step-by-Step
How to Handle Long Sales Cycles and Multi-year Deals in Pipeline Value Reporting
Addressing Dark Funnel and Offline Attribution

Why does pipeline influence reporting matter?

Simply put, pipeline value attribution matters because it shows why you’re worth the investment. I mean, if a business is spending more than it’s making with any effort, it isn’t financially wise, right? That’s why CFOs need to see the numbers.

But why is it especially important for marketing to prove its value?

As any seasoned marketer will tell you, marketing is often seen as a money pit. Small businesses often assign marketing tasks to existing team members, or worse, they’re the first to be ignored when faced with a tight budget.

In fact, Marketing Week’s Career & Salary Survey last year found that close to half of brands view marketing as a “cost” rather than an “investment.”

I’d argue this is because many marketing mediums can’t be tracked accurately. For instance, if someone sees a paid ad for one of your in-person events, attends, and then follows your blog for a month before contacting sales, what channel gets the credit?

With so many different, intersecting touchpoints, it’s notoriously difficult to attribute credit where it belongs.

via GIPHY

To be honest, as a marketer, it’s exhausting, but smart attribution reporting can help mitigate these issues and get us our due and dollars from financial leaders.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “How do I show marketing’s impact to the CFO? How do I prove marketing drives revenue? How do I get budget approved?” That all starts with understanding what metrics and attribution models CFOs want to see.