B2B brand marketing ROI: How to prove value to your CFO
Numbers first, then narrative. Build a brand budget case your CFO can sign.
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Your CFO just killed your brand budget. Again.
"Show me the ROI." "Pipeline first, brand later." Sound familiar?
In our recent original research report B2B SaaS branding is stuck, we surveyed 100 B2B marketing leaders from $50M+ SaaS companies.
We learned 83% of B2B SaaS companies don't track brand metrics at all. They're flying blind, hoping their brand efforts work while having zero data to prove it. Then they wonder why finance keeps cutting their budget.
20% blamed executive obsession with immediate ROI for killing their brand efforts. Another 18% watched brand budgets get slashed first whenever times got tough.
The problem isn't that CFOs hate brand. It's that we speak different languages. They speak numbers and marketers are often going off on intuition and gut feel.
Time to fix that.
Here's a quote from our research that sums up the majority of the B2B marketing leader's experience:
"I've asked my board for a brand investment to make people aware of who we are and what we stand for. The board declined to fund the investment because it could not measure the ROI for the brand campaign and thus would prefer to invest in demand generation."
You could argue that this CMO just walked into that rejection. Of course the board said no. They asked for money to "make people aware." That's not a business case. That's a wish.
Meanwhile, another leader told us:
"The priority is always on hitting revenue targets and growth projections. Brand is fine if I go and do it. But I have to cover the rest first."
Translation: Brand is a nice-to-have luxury after we hit our numbers. Which means brand never happens.
The tragic part? These same companies are leaving money on the table. Branded search terms deliver 19x higher ROAS than non-branded. Brand awareness increases performance marketing conversion rates up to 2.86x. Direct traffic (the stuff that comes from brand) has the highest conversion rates of any channel.
But if you're not measuring it, you can't prove it. And if you can't prove it, you can't fund it.
The way most marketing teams approach brand measurement isn't thorough enough.
Only 17% of companies track brand metrics quarterly or more. That means 83% have no regular insight into whether their brand efforts work. They're essentially saying "trust me" while asking for brand budgets.
The likihood is your CFO sees performance marketing delivering leads today. They see content marketing creating pipeline next quarter. But brand? Brand promises some fuzzy future benefit that might help somehow, someday, maybe.
From their seat, brand marketing looks like this:
The companies getting brand budget have figured out something the others haven't: Brand isn't separate from performance. It's the multiplier that makes everything else work better.
Here's what changes the conversation with your CFO. Stop talking about awareness as the goal. Start tracking metrics that predict revenue:
Unaided recall: When buyers think of your category, do they think of you? This directly correlates to being included in buying conversations. If 0% of buyers think of you unprompted, you're not in the game.
Consideration set inclusion: Which brands would buyers seriously evaluate? If you're not on the shortlist, you're not getting deals. Track this quarterly and watch how it correlates with pipeline creation.
Brand preference: If buyers had to pick today, who wins? A 5% lift in preference can mean millions in enterprise deals.
Share of search: Are you part of the research process? This is leading indicator of future pipeline.
One marketing leader from our research gets it:
"We underwent a CRO exercise with one of our websites, and just going through the journey ourselves, we felt it was nebulous. A simple test of the CTA ('get a demo' vs 'Upgrade my EHR') validated that we were being too unclear."
They then went on to measure conversion rate changes from clearer messaging. That's a number your CFO understands.
When we asked what they'd do with an unlimited brand budget, only 26% said they'd run big awareness campaigns. The rest wanted:
One leader put it perfectly:
"I want to take really bold risks and see if they stick. Today we have to be very methodical about how we invest because we are constantly trying to tie our investment to ROI so it gives us very little opportunity to take bold risks."
But here's the thing... to achieve these you don't need unlimited budget. You need a business case.
Our advice? Stop asking for brand budget and start building an investment thesis.
1. Establish your baseline first
Run a brand health survey. Get data on:
Now you have numbers, not feelings.
2. Connect brand metrics to business metrics
Track correlations between:
Show your CFO how brand metrics predict revenue metrics.
3. Start small with proof points
Don't ask for $500K for a brand campaign. Ask for $50K to run a focused test:
When you show 20% lift in consideration drives 15% improvement in conversion rates, you'll get your bigger budget.
4. Frame brand as a multiplier
Your performance marketing has a ceiling. At some point, you've maxed out your keywords, audiences, and channels. What happens then?
Brand breaks that ceiling. It:
Show your CFO that brand investment doesn't compete with performance marketing. It multiplies it.
26% of our surveyed marketing leaders have executives who get it. One lucky CMO told us:
"I have a CEO who is a big advocate for brand work. He understands it's a long-term investment and doesn't mind spending on it provided our short and medium term objectives for lead gen and pipeline are being met."
Notice what makes this work:
Another company embraced brand as a long-term investement:
"We recently hired a VP of Brand marketing and have subsequently moved budget over to them. We don't expect a direct correlation to leads/pipeline/revenue, but are comfortable with the long term investment."
These companies aren't special. They just changed the conversation from "can we afford brand?" to "can we afford not to invest in brand?"
The chances are your CFO doesn't hate brand. They hate waste, uncertainty and investing without clear returns.
So, give them what they need:
The companies winning at brand are the ones who measure what matters and prove what works, regardless of their budget.
Start showing ROI. The data exists. The tools exist. The only question is whether you'll use them.
Because while you're debating whether brand matters, your competitors who measure and invest are eating into your market share. And your CFO will definitely understand that number.
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