What if you, as a CMO, were able to show not only how much revenue your marketing investment will deliver, but when? Mike Colling explains how you can. If ever you needed proof that most businesses see marketing budgets as a cost and not an investment, 2020 provided it. Figure 1 below shows what marketing directors expected to spend each year (in black), followed by the quarterly revisions to those budgets (in grey) and their final annual outcome (in orange). With the exception of the boom years 2004-2008, pre-financial crash, where one might argue the whole world was mad, the picture has been depressingly familiar. The black line pokes up above all others in naïve optimism; the grey lines decline across the year as the reality of revenue shortfalls bites; the orange line is lowest of all, reflecting the reality of the dominance of the CFO in any budget negotiation.