The forgotten CFO: growth from the finance side of the table.

Most marketing decisions reach the finance leader late. The strategy is set, the budget is drawn up, the agency is chosen, and then the plan lands on the CFO's desk to be signed off. On the slide, the numbers look strong. Growth is up and to the right, the return on ad spend is healthy, the deck is confident. Then the same numbers reach the P&L, and something does not add up.

Two scorecards, one P&L

This is not about one bad campaign or one weak marketer. It happens because marketing and finance keep score with different numbers. Marketing celebrates what the ad platform reports. Finance has to answer for what the business keeps. The two numbers rarely match, and nobody has ever settled which one should count. So the finance leader is left to reconcile them, quarter after quarter.

Finance should not go last

This approach is the wrong way round. Growth you cannot see in the P&L is not growth you can bank. The finance leader should not be the last person in the conversation, translating everyone else's numbers after the fact. They should be the person the numbers are built to answer to from the start.

A resource for finance and marketing teams

This series of articles will guide finance and marketing teams through the points where their numbers stop matching, and what it takes to bring them back in line. We’ll cover areas like:

• How a strong return on ad spend can still lose money once the real costs come out

• What a marketer has to put in front of finance to earn a yes

• Why the same investment can be right one quarter and reckless the next

Each guide is written to do the same job: help finance and marketing argue less about the numbers and back the right bets faster.

If you are the finance leader who keeps being handed numbers that look better on paper than in the accounts, this series is for you. It’s also for your marketing team. Share this content with them so they can learn and you can both start working from the same numbers.

Read the first article here: Your 19x ROAS is really 4x ROAS