It’s budget season. The time of year when CEOs set growth targets, CFOs sharpen pencils, and every department makes its case for growth.
For marketing leaders, it’s the test as to whether the leadership team sees your department as a strategic necessity or as an optional cost-center.
I’ve been in these rooms for over two decades. I’ve walked in with big ideas, detailed decks, and the conviction that marketing was fueling revenue growth, only to watch a CFO’s eyes glaze over. Not because they didn’t care, but because I was speaking the wrong language.
At the executive table, every department speaks a different dialect. The teams that win resources are the ones that speak finance.
Far too often, marketing often fails to connect its work to the financial lens CFOs are required to use. We talk in engagement, conversions, and storytelling. They think in CAC, margin, and return on investment. And if you don’t translate, you don’t get funded.
If you want your CFO to see marketing as the engine of profitable growth it truly is, start by changing your language. It’s not about proving your worth. It’s about showing your impact in the numbers that already drive the business.
Stop saying: “We need more budget for the brand.”
Say instead: “Here’s the three-year revenue lift we project from brand investment.”
A CFO doesn’t see “brand” as a line item; what they see is an expense. Our job is to make sure they see how brand differentiation helps the company stand out as a valuable resource, not as just another company with another commodity that can be bought elsewhere at a lower price. A differentiated brand makes you memorable, which creates opportunity for trust, which reduces acquisition costs and increases margins through more sales at higher prices. It also creates higher retention because people love working for successful companies.
So how do you calculate that revenue lift? Start with what you can measure today. Anyone running branded advertising online already has a baseline. Compare the conversion rate of branded versus non-branded traffic. That difference is your multiplier. If branded leads convert at double the rate, you can project the incremental revenue gained from every future investment that strengthens brand recognition.
That single calculation reframes the brand from an expense to an asset. When you show finance how brand strength drives real efficiency across acquisition, pricing, and retention, they stop questioning the spend and start protecting it.
Stop saying: “We need budget to grow engagement.”
Say instead: “We’re building a more efficient pipeline by lowering our customer acquisition cost.”
CFOs don’t care about impressions, likes, or followers. They care about what drives profitable growth. Engagement matters most when it moves the financial needle, and that’s where marketing conversations fall short.
When you can connect engagement to conversion efficiency, it becomes a business lever instead of a vanity metric. For example, if your webinars or community programs are increasing conversion rates or reducing cost per opportunity, that’s the story to tell. A 20 percent lift in conversion at half the acquisition cost will always get a CFO’s attention.
Your engagement metrics are only as valuable as the revenue efficiency they create. Make that translation clear, and your marketing efforts shift from noise to measurable impact.
Stop saying: “We need budget for events.”
Say instead: “Events are forecasted to deliver qualified pipeline.”
Events are one of the first things CFOs scrutinize, and they’re right to. They’re expensive, resource-heavy, and often lack clear attribution. But when events are tied directly to pipeline efficiency, they move from “nice to have” to “necessary growth channel.”
“Marketing dollars will always be tight because stakeholders – whether retail investors, PE owners, or traditional founder-led leadership – need to see a positive return,” said Frank Moreno, Chief Marketing Officer of Entersekt. “Events are one of the strongest contributors to pipeline and revenue, and typically have one of the highest ROIs.”
He told me that the key to success is “helping leadership see how brand credibility events and demand capture events differ in terms of goals, resources, and processes.” In other words, don’t frame events as a single tactic. Make sure leadership understands that major conferences build credibility and reach, while smaller, targeted events often deliver direct pipeline through relationship building.
The biggest mistake I see is teams spending heavily on events without the systems to capture or follow up on the leads that come from them. The event itself is only half the equation. If sales isn’t ready to follow up systematically, and marketing isn’t nurturing intelligently, the return disappears. A CFO will see that gap instantly.
Stop saying: “Marketing needs a budget for creative storytelling.”
Say instead: “Our narratives are reducing friction in the sales cycle.”
CFOs don’t care how many blogs you publish or how clever your creative looks. What they care about is how that work moves deals forward. Creativity matters, but only when it translates into measurable growth.
At an international B2B tech startup where I led marketing, we leaned heavily on our product marketing to reframe our content strategy around objection handling for our bottom of funnel prospects. Every story was designed to remove a barrier that slowed a deal and to arm sales with clear, consistent messaging that built confidence. Within two quarters, the average sales cycle shortened by nearly twenty percent.
When creativity and storytelling becomes a tool for revenue acceleration, not just brand expression, finance starts to see storytelling as one of the most efficient levers you have.
Stop saying: “We need budget to test new channels.”
Say instead: “We’ve modeled the potential return and risk across channels. We’ve decided to add X and remove Y.”
Testing new channels is not optional. It is essential if you want to keep growing. But the moment you call it “testing,” a CFO hears “uncontrolled risk.” The key is to show that experimentation can be structured, data-driven, and financially modeled.
At the executive table, this isn’t about trying new tactics. It’s about portfolio management. When you walk in with clear assumptions, upside projections, downside risk, and a modeled ROI, the conversation changes. You’re no longer asking for permission to experiment, you’re presenting a calculated investment decision.
That’s what separates the marketers who get funded from the ones who don’t.
Earning More in 2026
“Marketing’s true power isn’t just in the stories we tell or the emotions we spark; it’s in the measurable value we create,” said Lindsey Williams, Vice President of Marketing and Communications with Shoals Technologies Group. “CFOs don’t fund campaigns; they fund growth and make revenue-generating investments. We earn our seat at the table when we speak the language of financial outcomes and business impact. Marketing has always been the engine of profitable growth, but leadership needs to see that through the numbers.”
Most CFOs want marketing to succeed. They want growth. But they need to justify every dollar the same way they would a factory expansion or a new software system. The goal isn’t to convince them that marketing matters. The goal is to show them that marketing is the growth engine — and to back it with the numbers that prove it.
This budget season, stop speaking Marketing. Start speaking Finance. That’s how you win the room.
Samantha Riel is founder of Scale Without Chaos and host of the Scale Without Chaos podcast. She was formerly a global head of marketing for multiple technology companies.
