Part of the series:
Strategies for 2025: Mastering Marketing Investments

Key Insights
Joint Budget Planning: Marketing and finance teams reviewing budgets together can quickly shift spending based on results. Regular reviews help teams find and fix underperforming campaigns while scaling successful ones. Data-Based Decisions: Marketing teams bring deep knowledge of campaign performance and customer behavior, while finance teams provide critical cost and revenue analysis. Together, they create a complete picture that improves spending decisions. Performance Reviews: Structured audits using shared frameworks help teams track channel performance, improve campaign results, and find cost savings. Regular reviews create a cycle of continuous improvement. Team Development: Cross-trained teams work better together. When marketing understands financial metrics and finance understands marketing goals, approvals move faster, and campaigns perform better.

Introduction:
Why Partnership Matters

In Parts 1 and 2, we examined adapting to economic changes and strategic budget planning. Now, we focus on an essential element: the partnership between marketing and finance teams that transforms budgeting and spending into a shared commitment to growth.

When marketing and finance teams share data and goals, they make better spending decisions, adjust quickly to market changes, and show straightforward returns on marketing investments. This isn’t wishful thinking – companies are achieving these results today through planned teamwork.

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Better Together:
Removing Barriers Between Marketing and Finance

Separate marketing and finance operations no longer work in today’s market. Joint decision-making improves both financial and strategic results:

1. Complete Analysis: Marketing and finance teams together see the full picture of business performance
2. Better Spending: Shared planning ensures spending aligns with company goals
3. Smart Risk Management: Finance analysis balances marketing initiatives
4. Accurate Predictions: Combined insights lead to better forecasts

Pro Tip: Hold monthly meetings between marketing and finance to review metrics, align strategy, and adjust forecasts based on current data.

🚨 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE 🌎
A global chemicals company managed thousands of products across multiple markets, each with unique pricing challenges. The problem: Marketing understood competitor pricing, sales knew customer needs, and finance tracked costs – but no team had the complete picture. Their solution:

• Built a shared system combining marketing, sales, and financial data
• Created a joint team to analyze pricing across product lines
• Developed a process for regular price reviews
• Established clear metrics for measuring success
• The structured collaboration between marketing, finance, and sales led to more accurate pricing and improved profitability.

(McKinsey & Company)

Improving Communication Between Teams

Marketing teams need to show their results in terms that make sense to finance. Here’s how:

1. ROI Reports: Create dashboards showing the financial impact of marketing work
2. Customer Value Analysis: Show long-term revenue from customer relationships
3. Multiple Scenarios: Present different budget options with expected results
4. Attribution Models: Demonstrate how marketing creates revenue

Using these tools, marketers can not only measure current campaign effectiveness but anticipate shifts before they happen, aligning marketing with real-time demand.

Marketing must create value and prove it with numbers finance teams trust.

Gartner, Inc.

Planning and Goal Setting

Teams work best when they have:

Collaboration Framework: Key Activities and Results

Four core activities build strong collaboration between marketing and finance teams. These activities need to happen regularly and build on each other. Teams that follow this framework make better decisions faster and achieve stronger results. Here’s the framework:

Activity	Description	Results
Monthly Meetings	Review performance and adjust plans based on current data	The team agrees on priorities and makes timely changes
Shared Metrics	Track costs and returns that matter to both teams	Creates a standard view of success
Joint Forecasting	Use combined data to build better forecasts	It makes budgets more accurate and flexible
Team Training	Build an understanding of each team’s priorities	Creates trust and effective teamwork

🚨 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE 🌎
A global chemicals company managed thousands of products across multiple markets, each with unique pricing challenges. The problem: Marketing understood competitor pricing, sales knew customer needs, and finance tracked costs – but no team had the complete picture. Their solution:

Marketing’s Role	Finance’s Role
– Developed strategy for Reddit audience – Monitored daily engagement metrics – Adjusted messaging based on response	– Set campaign budget guidelines – Tracked spending against goals – Measured return on investment

Together, these teams tracked and reported clear metrics: 72 million impressions and a significant increase in brand trust. This collaboration allowed for quick adjustments to improve campaign performance throughout its run. (DigitalDefynd)

Pro Tip: Build a shared dashboard tracking critical metrics for both teams.

Best Practices for Marketing-Finance Collaboration

The best marketing-finance partnerships share common practices that make their work together more effective. These four fundamentals help teams communicate clearly, make decisions faster, and achieve better results:

• Use Financial Terms: Present marketing data in financial language
• Show Clear Results: Connect marketing work to revenue and efficiency
• Match Goals: Ensure marketing supports financial targets
• Share Data: Build trust through open information sharing

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Budget Excellence:
Three Steps to Better Planning and Control

With strong collaboration in place between marketing and finance teams, improving your budget process becomes easier. These three steps help teams create, manage, and adjust budgets together. Each step builds on the previous one, creating a complete system for better spending decisions:

1. Complete a Marketing Review

Before starting, marketing and finance teams should gather all cost and performance data across channels. This review creates a clear picture of what’s working and what needs to change.

Marketing Review Framework

Review Area	Key Tasks	Purpose
Channel Results	– Measure returns for each marketing channel – Track costs vs revenue – Monitor conversion rates – Compare channel performance	Find the best and worst-performing channels
Campaign Analysis	– Check results from past campaigns – Review success metrics – Document lessons learned – Identify winning patterns	Improve tactics based on results
Budget Review	– Check the efficiency of spending – Review all marketing costs – Track spending vs plans – Find savings opportunities	Check if money is spent well
Technology Assessment	– Measure value from current tools and systems – Evaluate tool usage – Check integration needs – Assess team adoption	Remove unused tools, improve operations
Market Analysis	– Compare metrics to industry benchmarks – Track competitor activities – Monitor industry trends – Note market changes	Understand competitive position

Review Outputs

Based on this review, teams should document findings and create specific recommendations for future campaigns. Key outputs could include:

• Detailed performance analysis for each channel
• List of successful and unsuccessful tactics
• Specific budget recommendations
• Technology improvement plan

🚨 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE 🌎
An industrial products company worked with PwC to upgrade its B2B sales platform using Salesforce B2B Commerce. Customers gained better product access and account management, increasing online sales and customer satisfaction (PwC).

2. Set Clear Goals and Measurements

When marketing and finance teams set goals together, they create targets that matter to both departments. These four key measurements help teams track progress, justify spending, and demonstrate marketing’s impact on the business:

• Revenue Impact: Set specific revenue targets
• Customer Acquisition Cost: Define acceptable costs for new customers
• Customer Lifetime Value: Project long-term customer revenue
• Brand Impact: Set measurable brand awareness goals

Pro Tip: Create shared metrics tied to financial outcomes, tracked in one dashboard

Creating Flexible Budget Plans

Markets change quickly. Your budget should adapt. Before setting budgets, review historical performance data, identify successful programs, and establish clear triggers for budget adjustments. Use this framework to guide your planning:

Strategy	Actions	Purpose
Core vs. Experimental	– Assign 70% to proven programs, 20% to trends, 10% to new ideas – Review past performance data – Document successful programs – Plan regular reviews	Balance stability with innovation
Seasonal Planning	– Match spending to market cycles and demand patterns – Monitor industry trends – Adjust for market changes – Track seasonal results	Maximize impact in peak periods
Multiple Scenarios	– Prepare plans for various market conditions – Set change triggers – Define approval process – Create backup plans	Enable quick response to changes
Performance Adjustment	– Adjust spending based on measured results – Document decision criteria – Track improvement metrics – Update spending rules	Improve campaign results

Each strategy should include regular review points and clear processes for making changes based on results. Set up monthly check-ins to assess each strategy’s performance and make needed adjustments.

3. Developing Team Skills

Marketing and finance teams need different skills to succeed in 2025. But when these teams understand each other’s work, they make faster, smarter decisions together. Marketing teams that understand finance get faster budget approvals. Finance teams that understand marketing can better evaluate campaign performance. Here’s how to build these essential skills:

Development Area	Activities	Description
Ongoing Education	– Regular training on new tools and methods – Reading financial statements – Understanding budget cycles – Calculating ROI and customer acquisition costs	Marketing teams learn financial analysis basics
	– Digital marketing channels – Customer journey mapping – Campaign measurement methods	Finance teams learn marketing essentials
Learning Each Other’s Work	– Joint project assignments – Shared reporting responsibilities – Regular job shadowing opportunities – Cross-department mentoring	Marketing learns finance basics; finance learns marketing principles
Professional Growth	– Digital marketing certifications – Financial analysis courses – Project management training – Data analysis programs	Support for key certifications
Innovation Time	– Monthly learning sessions – Industry conference attendance – New tool testing periods – Pilot project opportunities	Scheduled time to explore new approaches
Knowledge Exchange	– Monthly lunch-and-learn meetings – Case study reviews – Success story sharing – Problem-solving workshops	Regular team-sharing sessions

Investing in team development fosters collaboration, increases cross-functional understanding, and drives innovation. Organizations can build a competitive advantage, enhance adaptability, and improve decision-making across departments by equipping marketing and finance teams with complementary skills and knowledge.

🚨 REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE 🌎
A financial services firm partnered with PwC to use Adobe Marketo Engage. They trained teams to improve lead generation and customer engagement, creating better alignment between marketing and sales (PwC).

Team development isn’t a cost—it’s an investment in adaptability.

The CMO Survey

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Wrapping Up and Looking Ahead:
Take Aways and Next Up

This chapter showed how marketing and finance collaboration improves budget decisions. By working together, setting shared goals, and aligning efforts, teams make better choices about resource use. This partnership isn’t just good practice—it’s essential for success in 2025’s changing market.

What’s Next?

Part 4 will examine emerging technologies and marketing trends beyond 2025. We’ll show how to use these innovations for sustained growth and better results.

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Sources

1. Gartner, Inc. (2024). The Chief Marketing Officer 3Q24. Gartner, Inc.
2. The CMO Survey. (2024). The CMO Survey: Firm and Industry Breakout Report, Spring 2024. Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

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