Whether you work in marketing, finance or HR, the last few weeks will no doubt have been focused on confirming budgets and finalising plans for 2025. And there’s no hiding that last year was defined by hardship and uncertainty, with only a quarter (24%) of CMOs stating they had enough finances to execute their plans.

In a world where the money well is drying up and the economic outlook globally remains unpredictable, CMOs are being stretched and asked to hit the same targets with reduced budgets. It’s a recipe for disaster from the get-go.

It’s also a reflection of the fact that marketing has become procurement lead and is increasingly viewed as a profit centre, not a cost centre. Perhaps there’s even more reason, then, to change the perception that marketing is separate from the rest of the business.

Enter the CMFO

Long gone are the days where marketing is told to find the best outcome for a campaign without considering the financial impact first. Instead, marketeers are being asked to produce ideas that help an organisation hit increasing financial targets with stagnating budgets. This change is requiring CMOs and marketing directors to continually prove the worth of every single penny that is spent, many with fluctuating budgets and rising targets.

Consequently, it’s exactly why the CFO will play a pivotal role in 2025 by helping to shape marketing strategies, with performance metrics aligned directly to business outcomes like profit and growth. The CFO and CMO need to be linked by the hip, making decisions in unison and ensuring any campaign ladders back up to the broader goals of the business.

In a world where marketers are having to prove their ROI in every decision made, why wouldn’t they want to speak the language of the CFO; it can be as simple as making sure the CFO is in the room when a new customer is brought into the business or ensuring the CMO has insight into the balance sheets every quarter.

Singing from the same hymn sheet

The traditional (and dated) view of marketing operating as a siloed cost centre stems from the difficulty in being able to correlate marketing spend with financial returns. What’s more, brands have been forced to cut costs in the past few years, margins are becoming thinner and success is becoming a tougher marker to hit.

However, the digital revolution, proliferation of data and access to sophisticated marketing automation tools have provided unprecedented visibility into campaign effectiveness. We live in a world where marketers can track the customer journey almost step-by-step.

A CMO’s role has almost become about safeguarding a brand from competitors as much as it has become about navigating tough economic periods. It’s exactly why we use MMM response curves to optimise channel and investment levels to maximise returns and avoid diminishing returns.

But more than that, CMO’s need a faster understanding of the impact that media and creative investment is driving, ensuring that marketing is connected directly to the goal the CFO has outlined the business to deliver.

It’s exactly why we encourage brands to use the 333 framework to measure the impact of media activity across three different speeds. The first being three seconds, where we measure the impact of the marketing engagement and forecast the long term opportunity. The second being three weeks, where experimentation ensures we are continually focusing on the incremental impact. Lastly measurement across three months, where we understand the broader impact of investment on business outcomes through the MMM and LTV models.

To build the connection between CMO and CFO though, it’s an important step to bring the CFO on the measurement journey alongside marketing teams, so they can understand the measurement capabilities and methodologies used.

A performance-first mindset

Business outcomes will always trump marketing metrics. That’s just a fact that every boardroom will, rightly, stick to as they protect the bottom line. In fact, it’s even more reason why the CFO and CMO’s priorities warrant a deeper alignment.

A quick trip down memory lane tells us that this hasn’t always been the case, however. Marketing in the 80s was all about newspapers and picking the broadsheet with the biggest reach. And then the 90s saw the dot.com boom and with it a wholesale shift to digital, where it quickly became about eyeballs and clicks.  

Fast-forward to today and we’re now shifting into a world where brand loyalty has diminished, in favour of cost savings and personalised engagement. For marketers, this means finding ways to create a lifetime connection with customers in their day-to-day lives.

For instance, a soon to be bride will spend £500 on bridesmaid’s dresses, a one-off purchase that represents a short-term gain for a brand. While an avid runner will purchase a new pair of trainers or running worth £150 every four months. The latter might be a far lower initial revenue, but there’s a clear long-term opportunity for marketers if they can create a connection that converts multiple purchases over a period of time.

If offered the choice between a one-off payment with no return business or a five-year customer relationship that brings significant gains to the business, I know which one I’m opting for.

Better, stronger, smarter

It’s no wonder that over one-in-five (22%) CMOs find themselves changing roles within a year. They aren’t being given the time to grow their department, prioritise long-term relationships over short-term wins, and they, crucially, are not working with the CFO closely enough.

The CFO of any business needs to be the lifeblood that keeps a CMO’s lifespan going. The two must operate in harmony and support each. This is not an overnight turnaround of course but a step-change that marketers need to embrace.

It’s this exact shift that will redefine how marketing teams operate, championing ROI and creativity all the same. The chief marketing finance officer isn’t just a buzzword;  it’s a strategy and plan that needs to stick as businesses ring in 2025.