By Lorraine Landon

Marketing is far more than just creative ads or social media buzz—it’s a measurable driver of business growth. Yet many Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) still face an uphill battle when trying to convince their Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) that marketing is not merely a cost centre, but a strategic revenue generator. In regions like sub-Saharan Africa, this disconnect is even more pronounced. With 40 percent of all advertising spending in Nigeria expected to shift to digital channels by 2029, the pressure is on for marketing leaders to demonstrate clear, quantifiable business value.

In my journey working with diverse marketing teams, I’ve found that a handful of targeted, actionable steps can improve communication between CMOs and CFOs. Here are practical tips and tools that have proven effective in enhancing marketing strategies and demonstrating true business value—turning initiatives into measurable drivers without claiming to have all the answers.

1. Rethinking Measurement: From Clicks to Conversions

For many, the success of a marketing campaign has traditionally been measured in impressions, click-throughs, or video views. While these metrics offer insight into reach and engagement,the action of a video view may not necessarily lead to revenue for the business. Modern marketing demands a measurement framework that goes beyond surface-level data. This is where a combination of incrementality, attribution, and marketing mix modelling (MMM) comes into play.

Incrementality is the process of determining how much a particular marketing effort boosts sales that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. Think of it this way: if you invest in a billboard or an online ad, incrementality testing (using tools like Campaign Experiments, Conversion Lift, or Search Lift) can reveal whether that campaign genuinely contributed to increased purchases or merely captured sales that would have occurred regardless.

Attribution works like detective work. It tracks the steps a customer takes along their journey—from seeing an ad to making a purchase—and assigns credit to each interaction. Modern attribution models, such as data-driven attribution in Google Ads, help pinpoint which specific ad or interaction influenced the final decision. This insight is crucial because it allows you to understand which channels or touchpoints are most effective in driving results.

Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM) involves analysing a range of data sources to understand how different marketing activities collectively contribute to business goals. Google’s very own MMM solution, set to be available soon to marketers, promises to simplify this process by offering deeper insights into the overall impact of your marketing mix.

When you combine these three elements—incrementality, attribution, and MMM—you create a robust framework that not only measures performance more accurately but also builds a compelling case for marketing as a key business driver.

2. Speaking the Language of Value

Once you’ve set up a modern measurement framework, the next step is communication. Too often, the dialogue between CMOs and CFOs is hampered by jargon or a focus on vanity metrics that don’t directly link to business outcomes. To bridge this gap, marketing leaders must “speak the language of value.”

1. Align Marketing with Business Goals:
   Start every campaign with a clear business objective—whether it’s boosting sales, enhancing brand loyalty. Ensure that every marketing activity, from the platforms you choose to the messaging you craft, directly supports that objective.

2. Clarify ROI at Every Stage:
   Recognise that different stages of the marketing funnel deliver different types of value. For example, while brand awareness campaigns might not yield immediate sales, they lay the groundwork for future revenue by building trust and favourability. Setting clear ROI expectations at each stage helps CFOs understand how early investments translate into long-term gains.

3. Map the Consumer Journey:
   Document the customer’s path from awareness to purchase. This mapping justifies your media choices and budget allocations by clearly linking each marketing action to a step in the consumer journey.

4. Monitor and Report Continuously:
   Keep your CFO in the loop with regular updates that tie marketing activities back to your business objectives. Establish benchmarks from the outset so that performance can be tracked and strategies adjusted as needed.

3. Reframing Your Marketing Strategy for Greater Impact

Despite the best efforts of CMOs, many marketing teams struggle to demonstrate the full impact of their campaigns. Only 41% of marketing leaders believe their companies are mature in performance measurement, highlighting a significant gap in strategy.

To overcome this, it’s time to reframe your marketing approach from the ground up. Start with your company’s overarching business objective and then translate that into measurable key performance indicators (KPIs). This top-down approach ensures that every campaign, whether it’s on Search, YouTube, social media, or other digital channels, is designed with the end goal in mind.

For instance, if your company’s objective is to increase market share, your marketing strategy should include targeted campaigns that focus on both broad brand awareness and specific conversion metrics. Each channel should have tailored messaging and clearly defined ROI metrics that can be easily explained to your finance team. In practice, this means understanding the unique characteristics of each platform. For example, the audience on YouTube might respond to engaging, visual storytelling, while users on Search might be more responsive to direct calls-to-action.

By framing your marketing strategy around clear business goals and measurable outcomes, you transform marketing from a cost centre into a proven revenue driver. This shift not only helps in gaining the trust of CFOs but also sets the stage for more strategic decision-making across the organisation.

4. Leveraging the Right Tools for Performance Tracking

No modern measurement framework is complete without the right set of performance tracking tools. Having accurate and timely data is paramount to demonstrating marketing effectiveness.

Tools to improve your conversion tracking right now:

• Track conversions, such as website purchases, form submissions, or event registration, using Google Ads Conversion Tags, Floodlight Tags and Google Analytics Key Events. These tools not only track the conversion, but also other details about the customer, such as the path to purchase, location, if they are a new or returning customer, or if the conversion met a value-based goal.

• Add offline conversion tracking to include the data from conversion events that can be harder to track otherwise, for example in-store purchases, interactions with call centres, or events on the way to a conversion such as moving through the sale process for car insurance.

Why measurement is a necessity for marketers in sub-Saharan Africa in 2025

The industry’s current climate feels like shifting tectonic plates: marketing budgets are shrinking, customer interactions across marketing channels are increasing and changing, and consumer behaviour is ever-evolving.

CMOs in sub-Saharan Africa have an opportunity to rebrand themselves as business critical in the eyes of the C-suite with a renewed ability to prove that marketing is aligned with business goals. By embracing this transformation, you’ll not only earn your CFO’s confidence but also establish a future where every marketing decision is grounded in data, insights, and clear business value.

Lorraine Landon is the Head of Advertising Products and Solutions at Google for Sub-Saharan Africa

By Jerome-Mario Utomi

Public policy, going by experts’ definition, is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs and encompasses what the government does, or does not do to solve a problem in society.

Correspondingly, policymaking and problem-solving are what citizens expect from their elected and appointed government representatives once they have taken office, and are entrusted with serving their constituency.

Given the foregoing,  developing public policy decisions for the good of those in, and on behalf of those outside the government (public) has become not only a culture but vital for public officers and all levels of government — municipal, state, and federal Ministries, Parastatals, Commissions and agencies among others. They met this culture when they joined the service, guided by the culture while in service and ultimately transferred this culture to their successors in office.  It is imperative to note that the root of public policy in our nation, just as in other parts of the world, is deep and there is something massive and positive about it.

A veritable example is the people-oriented and sustained development-minded actions and policies of the Mr Chiedu Ebie-led Governing Board and Management of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), a federal government agency established by former Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo in 2000, with the sole mandate of developing the oil-rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria.

Upon inauguration in November 2023, the NDDC board, to the admiration of all stakeholders, came up with well-thought-out initiatives and projects. Prominent among these projects, programmes and initiatives are the building of partnerships, lighting up the region, initiating sustainable livelihood, improving youth capacity and skills base, executing efficient and cost-effective projects, including Project Hope for Renewed Hope, reducing carbon emission, and improving peace and security.

While the above initiatives and policies remain admirable, there is another policy by the Governing Board and Management that this piece would underline as something massive and positive.

Some months ago, the Commission’s leadership, during the presentation of its N1.91 trillion 2024 budget to the Senate Committee on NDDC, emphasized priorities such as security, job creation, youth and women empowerment, social welfare, education and the profound initiative to raise N1 trillion, from development and commercial banks, for the completion of 1,006 legacy projects spread across the region. These projects were reportedly in specific areas such as roads, bridges, electricity, schools, hospitals, shore protection and reclamation, among others.

Aside from the overt awareness that when abandoned projects are completed and put into use, it saves the nation from wastage, boosts national assets and promotes socio-economic development of the people, region and the nation in general, there are, however, other covert reasons that render this present development as both newsy and commendable. Students of history is familiar with the origin of project abandonment and neglect of national assets in Nigeria and the politics that fuel this will agree that the NDDC governing board and management are on the path to ending an ugly ‘culture’ that has over the years held down the region’s development.

If this policy framework is achieved as envisaged, it is abundantly clear that future historians and, of course, development professionals shall refer to the present board and management as a bunch that restored new order in the region and hope to the people. Beyond what future historians may say, there is equally the need to highlight why this piece is fixated on NDDC’s departure from the old order, and at the very moment on a mission to tackle a challenge that has not only become a culture of a sort but has its origin deeply rooted in history that predates the nation’s independence in October 1960.

Beginning with the historical undertone as to why Nigerians and successive leaderships in the country daily demonstrate a lackadaisical attitude towards national assets and see nothing wrong with project desertion, history has it that during colonial rule, Nigerians developed the anti-colonial belief that public property is no man’s property. This belief, according to reports, was intended to fight colonialism but it continued after independence and brought insensitivity to government property as well as ineptitude, nepotism, neglect of duty, etc.; it gravely explains as to the reckless way in which government property and projects are handled.

Indeed, what the above information tells us is that both project abandonment and public asset neglect in the country are two striking human tragedies, and the pain they inflict on the nation is deepened by the realisation that they were avoidable.

Beyond this understanding, there are reasons to believe that this piece is not alone in the understanding that NDDC leadership is doing something positively new.

A few days ago, the Pan Niger Delta Development Forum, PANDEF, commended the leadership of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, for its commitment to transparency, accountability, and infrastructure development in the region.

Giving the commendation during a courtesy visit by a delegation from the umbrella organization of Niger Delta people at the NDDC headquarters in Port Harcourt, PANDEF’s National Chairman, Ambassador Godknows Igali, lauded the Commission’s leadership, describing it as visionary and result-driven.

His words: “We have never seen a leadership team like this, and we thank President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for his support. Your interventions in infrastructure, particularly the Benin-Ore Road and the Light Up Niger Delta initiative, are commendable. Your youth development programmes are also making a significant impact.”

He further assured the Commission of PANDEF’s continued collaboration, reiterating the group’s role as the voice of the Niger Delta people in the civic space:  “We believe in working closely with you and reaffirm our support for your administration. We urge Mr. President, the governors, and other stakeholders to provide you with the necessary tools to succeed,” he concluded.

No doubt, some books teach how to build a house, how to repair an engine and how to write a book, but there are no codified books on how to build a region, society or nation. Conversely, nation-building, in my view, depends on ceaseless creative and far-reaching public policies designed and implemented by well-forsighted leaders- a case in point is the NDDC’s resolve to complete abandoned projects that presently litter its mandate states.

This author,  therefore, believes that closing ranks to learn from NDDC’s latest template is not only important but eminently desirable for other agencies and Commissions in the country as “we cannot continue to do one thing repeatedly and be expecting a different result-or tackling our societal challenges with the same mentality used when the problems were created”

Finally, while it is obvious that it is a season of public good for the Niger Delta region and its people, for me, the positive public policies so far generated by the Governing Board/Management of NDDC align with the famous words of Martin Luther King Jnr: “Human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability but is achieved through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be coworkers with God”

Utomi, a media specialist, writes from Lagos, Nigeria. He can be reached via [email protected]/08032725374

By Waldo Marcus

South Africans will be watching this week’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) to see if the government’s long-promised structural reforms will finally be fast-tracked to drive much-needed economic growth. They will also be assessing how the president balances a number of tightropes including concerns that some of the GNU partners have with the Expropriation Bill, NHI and the BELA Act, local government failures including a rapidly approaching water crisis, mixed with global tensions.

Past SONAs have focused on a familiar litany of issues: lacklustre economic growth, high unemployment, failing infrastructure, poor service delivery and a regulatory environment which is not conducive to economic growth. There is little expectation that this year will be any different with many of the same platitudes about a commitment to growing the economy likely be dusted off again.

What will be different this time around is that the president will be balancing an ever more complex environment. Positivity around the GNU has waned with policy differences starting to appear. While the energy crisis has been partially addressed, water is a looming catastrophe. South Africa’s relationship with its largest trading partner is in the spotlight with a threat of tariffs from the United States. Then there are diplomatic issues one being how South Africa plans to extricate its peacekeeping troops from Rwanda.

Locally, the president is under pressure to facilitate a more business-friendly environment. The IMF says South Africa has one of the most restrictive business environments globally. It has recommended a raft of reforms to enhance the country’s business environment, bolster governance, improve labour market flexibility, facilitate trade and achieve the country’s climate goals. The IMF calculates that South Africa could add 1.8% to its growth rate if it can get corruption under control, improve the regulatory and business environment and make government more effective.

The country has also come in for criticism for its competition regulations with Stuart Theobald, chair of research-led consultancy firm Krutham pointing out in a recent Business Day editorial that the government does not appreciate how damaging our competition authorities are to foreign investment and growth. He says South Africa urgently needs to revisit the principles and objectives of how competition is regulated. Large property asset sales are already being slowed due to the Competition Commission’s involvement.

Both national, provincial and local governments need to become more efficient and effective. Operation Vulindlela is an initiative spearheaded by the president and the National Treasury to speed up reforms. Local government in the form of municipalities plays an important role in providing communities with essential services including clean water, proper sanitation, reliable electricity, effective waste management and well-maintained roads and municipal infrastructure.

Of concern is the trend of failing municipalities. According to the Auditor-General’s latest local government and audit outcomes report, many municipalities continue to receive poor audit outcomes with only 13% obtaining clean audits. This has triggered a cycle of low collection rates across municipalities as ratepayers demand value for money but fail to see good governance and leadership delivering on promises. Collectively, municipalities owe Eskom more than R109 billion, putting the power utility under pressure.

Property values in poorly run municipalities typically decline. Well-run municipalities that have maintained their public infrastructure, including well-maintained and safe public areas, on the other hand, will ensure that those areas remain sought after by property investors, tenants and businesses.

The president is very aware that the economy pays a heavy price for the high unemployment rate with less personal tax available to be collected, less consumer spending taking place and sluggish GDP growth.

As far as the property industry is concerned, a robust and secure job market is essential for the long-term health of the residential rental market and to keep vacancies low. Stats SA’s employment survey reveals that the unemployment rate increased in the fourth quarter of 2024 to 32.1% from 31.9% in the fourth quarter. The formal sector lost 128 000 jobs with further job losses expected in agriculture, mining and manufacturing in 2025.

A new study by speciality research publisher Taylor & Francis revealed that none of the eight largest metros in South Africa have experienced appreciable employment growth in manufacturing and tradable goods.

An issue that the president will likely touch on in the SONA is reporting on what the government is doing to reduce logistics constraints and ensure improved efficiencies at Transnet. He may also touch on the government’s draft National State Enterprise Bill which proposes the creation of a centralised holding company to oversee state-owned enterprises. Critics of the bill have pointed out that state-owned enterprises such as Eskom and Transnet are already owned by a centralised agency which hasn’t improved their efficiency or competency and that the proposed bill will simply add another layer of bureaucratic bloat.

The annual SONA is often described as bland. In a constrained fiscal space, there is little expectation that this year’s address will deliver anything more exciting. In a perfect world, President Ramaphosa would be announcing a way forward that includes improved service delivery, more efficient local government, a plan to address the water crisis, and the implementation of a less restrictive regulatory environment while at the same time providing assurance to the country’s major trading partners and investors that their needs were also being taken into consideration.

Waldo Marcus is a Director at TPN from MRI Software