Your CFO is coming for your budget. Here’s how to stop them

As the 2026 budget season looms, CMOs across Australia are bracing for another round of “flat-to-down” forecasts. Paul Sinkinson, APAC managing director at Analytic Partners, explains how marketers can turn finance scepticism into partnership and why the data favours those who speak the CFO’s language.

Every year it arrives sooner. Campaigns are still live, the 2025 budget isn’t even spent, and yet the whispers start: next year’s flat-to-down. For many CMOs, that means another season of defending spend while still delivering growth. It’s the ultimate paradox – changing the tyres while the car’s still moving with the CFO in the passenger seat holding the calculator.

But the fight for the budget is really a fight for translation. CMOs speak in campaigns and audiences; CFOs speak in capital allocation and return. When marketing gets lost in translation, finance defaults to “no”.

Analytic Partners’ ROI Genome analysis of thousands of campaigns across the region shows just how much is at stake. Marketing, when measured properly, drives a significant share of total business growth. That’s not a soft metric – it’s shareholder value. Yet many marketers still describe success in “reach” and “impressions”, not in growth and profit.

The first fix is language. Use ROI, NPV and hurdle rates. Talk about growth, not “likes”. When you show marketing through a financial lens, it stops looking like cost and starts looking like capital.

The second fix is balance. In Australia, marketers often over-index on short-term performance because it feels measurable. But the data is clear: campaigns that sustain over 31 weeks or more deliver around 65% higher ROI than stop-start bursts.

And when brand and performance are planned together, campaigns deliver around 90% higher ROI than those focused on performance alone. Cutting brand to chase efficiency isn’t saving money; it’s starving future demand.

Creative strength matters just as much. Analytic Partners has tested more than 51,000 creatives and only 14 truly “wore out”. The rest were pulled too early – right before they peaked. Creative is the second-largest driver of ROI after spend. It’s not a cost centre, it’s compounding capital.

The same logic applies to experimentation. “Test and learn” often sounds to finance like “spend and hope”, but it’s actually disciplined risk management. When each test has a clear hypothesis, success metric and stop-or-scale rule, you’re not gambling – you’re managing a growth portfolio with a lab coat on.

Speaking of portfolios, that’s exactly how marketers should frame budgets. Pitch a “Growth Capex” line that mirrors investment language your CFO already trusts:

• 70% proven drivers – consistent brand, media diversity, omnichannel presence.
• 20% scaled pilots – tested initiatives ready for rollout.
• 10% new bets – ring-fenced innovation capital.
• It signals commercial discipline, not creative indulgence.

Finally, adapt like a market economist. Right-time marketing isn’t about reacting faster; it’s about budgeting smarter.

Align spend to seasonality – categories with natural peaks can lift ROI by 30%. Track competitor activity and macro shocks. Publish a monthly “conditions update” that links every reallocation to projected sales, profit and cash flow. When you do that, agility stops looking like flakiness and starts looking like foresight.

For CFOs, predictability is trust. For CMOs, flexibility is growth. The sweet spot is measurement that bridges both – and that’s where the marketing mix modelling comes in. It translates the messy reality of campaigns, promotions, and competition into financial terms. It shows, with evidence, how brand plus performance multiplies ROI, why consistency compounds, and how agility preserves margin in volatile conditions.

Analytic Partners’ Australia Marketer’s Budget Playbook: How to Get Your CFO to Say “Yes” in 2026 distils these lessons into six CFO-ready arguments built on ROI Genome data. It’s not a sales deck; it’s a conversation guide. Because CFOs don’t wake up wondering how to fund your campaign – they wake up wondering how to fund growth. Your job is to prove those two things are the same.

The best defence against budget cuts isn’t a tighter spend plan. It’s a stronger argument, grounded in data the CFO can trust – and delivered in a language they already speak. Download the Australia Marketer’s playbook here.

This post is sponsored by Analytic Partners.