Marketing the board can read
Most arguments about marketing happen because marketing speaks its own language while the business speaks the language of money. This work translates one into the other.
- Price
- from $2,500
- Duration
- 2–3 weeks
I reply personally within 24 hours
Two people at one table look at the same money and see different things
Marketing has never been scrutinised this closely. In The CMO Survey, run by Duke University and Deloitte, marketing leaders named one top challenge: showing how marketing affects financial results. 63% of them feel growing pressure from the CFO, up from 52% a year earlier.
And there is little to show. In McKinsey's State of Marketing Europe 2026, just 3% of companies could explain more than half of their marketing budget through return measurement. For most, as much as 90% of spend is not measured at all. Only about half of CMOs say they collaborate regularly with the CFO.
No wonder they read the same money differently. According to McKinsey, 70% of CEOs judge marketing by revenue and margin growth, while only 35% of CMOs call that their top metric.
One person sees reach and leads. The other sees the budget growing while profit does not. Arguing gets them nowhere until they share a vocabulary.
McKinsey gives an example worth remembering. A hospitality company spent more than $100 to acquire each guest, while a guest brought in $80 on average. The advertising worked beautifully: more guests arrived every month. Each one simply made the company a little poorer.
What is included
Customer acquisition cost
We calculate what acquiring one customer costs in each channel: advertising, people, tools, platform commissions. Everything that actually goes into acquisition.
Customer lifetime value
We calculate what a customer brings over the entire relationship: repeat orders, average order value, lifespan. That is what decides which channels are profitable and which only seem to be.
A decision panel
A simple panel that shows the economics of every channel without an analyst and without waiting for the monthly report.
Defending the numbers
I prepare the figures for board or investor questions and help defend them: where every number comes from, what cannot be trusted and where the margin of error is.
Three weeks, and the numbers finally have an owner
Week 1. Gathering the numbers
Monthly revenue, marketing and sales costs, and CRM data on where each customer came from and how much they bought. If the data is thin or messy, that is fine and normal. It is also a finding: you will see what is missing for decisions.
Week 2. Calculating the economics
Acquisition cost and customer value for every channel, counting everything that actually goes into acquisition, salaries and commissions included. This is usually the week of surprises. The channel that looked expensive per lead turns out to be the most profitable, and the favourite channel turns out to be a favourite mostly out of habit.
Week 3. Building the panel and preparing the defence
You get a panel with numbers you can show a board without blushing, and you know where every one of them came from.
What you leave with
- Acquisition cost and customer value per channel, with a source for every figure.
- A panel where the economics are visible at any moment.
- An answer to the main question: where the next marketing dollar goes and where to take it from.
The most expensive line turned out not to be advertising
In an industrial company with a 23,000-item catalogue, marketing looked healthy: enquiries kept coming. The money leaked further down, between the enquiry and the invoice. That stretch took a day and a half, long enough for the client to ask a competitor for a price.
Once we looked at the client path in money rather than in leads, it was clear where to invest: not in more enquiries, but in answering the existing ones faster. Time to invoice dropped to 30 minutes, and the new channel added 23% to revenue.
Who it is not for
- Anyone whose sales have not started yet: economics are calculated on historical data, and without history there is nothing to count.
- Anyone not ready to open the numbers: revenue, costs, channels. Without them the work turns into guesswork.
- Anyone who wants a pretty deck for an investor. I calculate the real economics, including the inconvenient figures.
Questions people usually ask
How is this different from what a CFO does?
The CFO sees how much money went into marketing. Marketing sees how many leads came out. Between those two points there is usually a gap: nobody knows which channel brings customers who stay and buy again and which brings one-off buyers. I work in exactly that gap and speak both languages, so afterwards finance and marketing argue about the same numbers for the first time.
Our analytics are a mess. Can we still start?
Yes, as long as sales are already happening and there are at least a few months of history. Nobody has perfect data, large companies included. I work with what exists: a CRM export, sales spreadsheets, accounting. Where data is missing, I show the margin of error honestly and tell you what to start recording so it shrinks within a quarter.
What is customer lifetime value, and why compare it with acquisition cost?
Lifetime value (LTV) is the money a customer brings over the whole relationship, not just the first purchase. Acquisition cost (CAC) is everything you spent to bring them in. On their own, both numbers say very little: an expensive customer can be profitable, a cheap one ruinous. Meaning appears in the ratio, and right now it matters more than usual. In 2026 Gartner noticed companies pushing paid media up to 31.4% of the marketing budget while cutting investment in retention and loyalty. New customers arrive today; the bill for the ones who leave arrives later.
What if a channel turns out to be losing money?
Then the work has already paid for itself. It is rarely a catastrophe, more often a reallocation: a losing channel can be fixed, cut, or kept on purpose, for awareness for instance. What matters is that it becomes a decision rather than a habit. Gartner's 2026 advice to CMOs is exactly this: fund marketing as a portfolio that shifts toward whatever performs. That requires knowing what performs.
Why a panel if we already have reports?
A report tells you what happened last month. A panel tells you what to do this month. It holds only a few numbers, and each can be explained in one sentence. If a number cannot be explained, it does not belong on the panel.
What do you need from us?
Revenue and cost exports for the last year, read access to the CRM or an export from it, and one person on the finance side who can answer questions. I sign an NDA before starting if needed.
What happens after the three weeks?
The panel stays with you and works without me. If you like, I can help rebuild the budget around its numbers as a CMO one to three days a week.
Sources: McKinsey, State of Marketing Europe 2026, November 2025; Gartner, CMO Spend Survey 2026, May 2026; The CMO Survey, Duke and Deloitte, 2025; McKinsey, “The CMO’s comeback”, June 2025.