BACKGROUND
Promising to modernize the homebuying process, this publicly traded real estate holding company was formed to build proprietary technology and products that support its portfolio of real estate brands. However, as the business matured, leadership recognized that stronger marketing finance integration became essential to improving enterprise reporting, investment transparency, and executive decision-making.
CIMPLY’S PITCH
Greater transparency and access to the right data support strategic planning and decision-making at the highest level of the Enterprise. Additionally, this empowers the Chief Executive Officer to better contextualize company performance and communicate those results to the investment community.
ENTERPRISE MARKETING DATA CHALLENGES
Leadership lacked a consistent view of marketing investments, financial performance, and business outcomes. The company needed more effective marketing finance integration across its portfolio of brands. Internally, the CMO Council served as the primary vehicle of influence for the Enterprise CMO because the other CMOs do not directly report into the Enterprise organization.
The CMO Council includes the five Chief Marketing Officers and other key executives who manage the seven distinct marketplace Brands.
In addition, each Brand has its own teams and financial systems. Each also relies on a variety of software tools, platforms, and service providers to support marketing campaigns and initiatives.
GOALS FOR MARKETING FINANCE INTEGRATION
Accordingly, we encouraged the Enterprise to actively pursue initiatives designed to strengthen marketing finance integration, improve budget controls, increase investment in digital channels, and better understand return on marketing investment.
We set out to design and implement a Planning, Buying, and Reporting framework that would connect the marketing data ecosystem end-to-end. As a result, deep integrations like this enable financial inputs to serve as the foundation for measuring the economic performance and return on marketing investment.
Ultimately, this framework would allow the Brand-level Chief Marketing Officers to independently run their businesses while still meeting the Enterprise’s data transparency and governance needs. In turn, the Enterprise could make data-driven decisions that fuel growth by analyzing marketing investments and optimizing spend across paid, owned, and earned media.
OUR APPROACH TO STANDARDIZING MARKETING AND FINANCIAL DATA
Initially, Cimply was engaged to assess the digital marketing capabilities of this multi-Brand enterprise. Our assessment focused on ensuring that the Enterprise and the operating Brands had the necessary capabilities to continue executing existing advertising and marketing plans. At the same time, we evaluated opportunities to rationalize, consolidate, and ultimately centralize much of their digital marketing infrastructure and service delivery.
However, it quickly became clear that there were distinct organizational boundaries that limited how much access we would be provided within the operating Brands. As a result, the planned assessment evolved into the development of a Modern Marketing Excellence Guidebook.
Cimply developed the Modern Marketing Excellence Guidebook for the Enterprise CMO. It served as a practical resource for leading the CMO Council while laying the groundwork for greater collaboration between the Enterprise and the operating Brands. Our client recognized that a comprehensive Marketing Center of Excellence would serve as the vehicle to drive this vision by aligning diverse teams and Brands under a common set of parameters while nurturing individual creativity and independence.
To establish that vision, this guidebook embodied Best-in-Class Marketing, specifically within a House of Brands, where success is anchored in measurability, integration, and attribution. We outlined five (5) key pillars that shape the foundation of marketing excellence:
- Connected Customer Strategy: How should they cultivate long-lasting relationships and transform buyers into brand advocates?
- Data Strategy: Make informed decisions, optimize campaigns, and seize opportunities with precision and foresight.
- Analytics (Customer, Audience, Content, Campaign, Business): Gain deep insights into customer behavior, content performance, and campaign efficacy.
- Omni-channel Activation: Create compelling journeys that resonate with the audience.
- Measurement: Provide definitive clarity on ROI, enable data-backed decision-making, and fuel innovation as we chart the path forward.
Most importantly, getting to readiness through Marketing Governance became the common theme connecting more effective Data Strategy, Analytics, and Measurement.
MARKETING DATA STANDARDS
Cimply developed the Marketing Data Requirements Guide in collaboration with the CMO Council, Procurement, Finance, and Legal for use by Brand teams directly or in collaboration with their Agency and Platform partners. This Marketing Data Requirements Guide defines the detailed data outputs and configuration requirements for planning, activation, and performance reporting across:
- Social
- Search
- Lead Generation
- Video
- Audio
- Out of Home
- Digital Out of Home
- Direct Mail
In addition, the guide includes instructions for administering third-party platform accounts. It also defines data output and delivery requirements, campaign tagging and tracking, and historical lookback windows. Together, these requirements establish standardized and reliable data pipelines for analysis. They also secure primary access to, and control of, all Brand platform accounts from partner agencies.
CHANNEL DATA REQUIREMENTS TEMPLATE
Cimply included channel-level Data Requirements Templates within the guide as the standard for detailed media reporting and attribution. Additionally, we structured the framework around media buying best practices while maintaining compatibility with agency buying practices they may encounter. Finally, the design naturally rolls up to funding sources and provides maximum reporting flexibility at the most granular levels.
FINANCIAL DATA STANDARDS
How can an enterprise using multiple financial management systems accurately track marketing spend? More importantly, how can it connect that spend to business performance? We partnered closely with Finance and Procurement to tackle this fundamental challenge. Budgeting had become a manual, fragmented task, and reporting lacked the consistency needed for confident decision-making.
We began by strengthening marketing finance integration through standardized financial data, procurement processes, and General Ledger alignment.
Next, by aligning marketing-related data directly to the General Ledger, we enabled a much clearer view of how marketing investments relate to forecasts and actuals.
Although this may seem like a simple change, it enables Finance and Marketing to track expenditures, review performance, and update forecasts with confidence.
As a result, it closes the loop with the Marketing Data Requirements already adopted and integrated into the Enterprise Procurement and Data Governance policies.
From this point forward, all marketing supplier contracts include these Data Requirements as part of the standard data-sharing agreement terms. In addition, the Procurement team identified suppliers that had recently signed or renewed agreements so those contracts could be prioritized for amendment.
BUDGET REPORTING TEMPLATE
To support the rollout, we introduced a Budget Reporting Template that builds directly on the Enterprise’s existing budget process. The template saves time by keeping familiar workflows intact while introducing a cleaner, more structured approach to requesting and reporting budget details.
We paired this template with a simplified General Ledger structure, helping stakeholders understand:
- where dollars are going?
- how do they relate to key marketing channels?
- do they map to overall business objectives?
However, Brand teams often submit budgets with limited detail about channel allocations. Our structure accommodates this. Additional granularity can be added later, once media plans are finalized.
Consequently, this flexibility supports both top-down planning and bottom-up updates as campaigns evolve. The end result is more accurate projections and a faster, more transparent reporting process.
PROCUREMENT PLATFORM ALIGNMENT
Within the Enterprise Procurement platform, commodity codes further sub-categorize products and services in the Enterprise financial system and support Strategic Planning Budget reporting across the organization.
Consequently, data now flows through a fully aligned system. The General Ledger framework matches the Budget Reporting Template and the Data Requirements Template exactly.
Ultimately, logical and functional alignment removes ambiguity and eliminates the need for manual interpretation between financial reports and marketing inputs.
RESULTS OF MARKETING FINANCE INTEGRATION
Our Financial Audit and Analysis revealed that more than 75% of the company’s stated $250 million annual marketing spend was not tied to working media or what most would consider “marketing.” Instead, it was allocated to sales enablement, operations, brokerages, technology, and franchise-related activities.
As a result, measurable improvements in financial transparency, operational efficiency, and marketing accountability were achieved by aligning financial and marketing data at the source and standardizing key processes.
Following this engagement, McKinsey validated these findings. The firm was unable to further clarify the marketing budget or add meaningful value. That reinforced the clarity and impact of the framework already in place.
CONCLUSION
In the end, the result was a scalable marketing finance integration framework that improved governance, accelerated reporting, and gave executive leadership greater confidence in marketing investment decisions.
Beyond those gains, other notable outcomes included:
- Eliminated Redundancies: Mapped areas of channel and partner overlap, enabling more informed decisions on media mix and partnership strategy.
- Vendor Rationalization: Uncovered opportunities for vendor consolidation, reducing administrative burden and improving negotiating leverage.
- Accurate Financial Classification: Reclassified brand marketing spend using standardized definitions of working versus non-working media, enabling better budget allocation and performance tracking.
- Cross-Team Visibility: Exposed areas of spend concentration and functional overlap across Brand marketing teams, providing leadership with clearer insight into resource distribution and collaboration gaps.
- Finance-Marketing Alignment: Enabled a closed-loop system between Finance and Marketing. This improved forecasting, budgeting, compliance, and audit readiness.
CLIENT FEEDBACK AND RESULTS
“Cimply helped navigate technical and data driven challenges masterfully. Their ability to traverse and partner with leadership across marketing, finance and IT disciplines are welcome in an ever changing and complex ecosystem that data driven professionals are navigating. Cimply is a sounding board that reminds leaders and professionals to take a step back and look at things simply and logically.”
P.D., Senior Director, Enterprise Marketing Performance and Analytics
“Cimply had great expertise and brought very innovative ideas to the table. I appreciated the way their minds worked and the knowledge that they would embed in their solutions and suggestions”
A.W., Manager, Performance Marketing and Analytics
”The Cimply team consistently provides strategic knowledge that helps shape our charters path. Their voice and industry expertise is a welcomed addition to our team.”
B.H., Director of Performance Marketing
“Cimply was extremely useful and brought up unique points of view in nearly all situations. They remained focused on what was critical and always ensured that we had what we needed to succeed.”
K.R., Manager, Analytics and Measurement