How to Build a CFO Approved Business Case
for Multi-Touch Attribution Software

Fully loaded marketing spend by acquisition channel (media, agencies, software, internal salaries where applicable)

Finance systems, invoices, payroll allocations

Establishes the baseline against which any efficiency gains, cost savings, or revenue improvements will be measured. Without an agreed baseline, projected ROI cannot be validated.

Five to ten recent closed-won opportunities with complete marketing touchpoint history

CRM export, GA4, marketing automation platform

Provides real commercial examples that demonstrate how multi-touch attribution would have changed budget allocation or campaign evaluation compared with the current reporting model.

Current attribution methodology and documented reporting limitations

RevOps documentation, analytics audit, stakeholder interviews

Finance will expect a clear explanation of why the existing approach is insufficient before approving investment in another reporting platform.

Internal implementation and ongoing administration costs (hourly rates, estimated maintenance time, technical ownership)

Finance, HR, Operations

Allows the business case to calculate total cost of ownership rather than relying solely on annual licence fees, producing a more realistic investment appraisal.

Comparable vendor pricing across multiple products and pricing tiers

Vendor proposals, pricing pages, procurement conversations

Demonstrates that alternative solutions were evaluated and that the recommended platform represents an informed commercial decision rather than a single-product preference.

“What makes you confident we’ll actually hit these numbers?”

Acknowledge that no financial projection is guaranteed. Explain that the investment cost is fixed, while the return depends on how effectively the business acts on the insights generated by the platform.

“I’m not suggesting we’ll deliver exactly 387% ROI. That’s why we’ve modelled conservative, expected, and optimistic scenarios rather than presenting a single number. The investment itself is £11,288 a year. The variable is how quickly we’re able to identify better-performing channels and reallocate budget accordingly. Even under the conservative assumptions, the projected return remains comfortably above the total cost of ownership.”

“Didn’t we try something like this before and it went nowhere?”

Separate the previous implementation from the underlying business problem. Understand why the earlier investment failed before assuming the outcome will be the same.

“I’d want to understand what happened last time before comparing the two. If the platform wasn’t adopted, the data wasn’t trusted, or ownership wasn’t clear, those are implementation issues. The commercial problem we’re trying to solve hasn’t changed. We’re still making budget decisions without consistently understanding which marketing activities contribute to revenue.”

“Can’t our own team just build this in-house?”

Treat this as a genuine commercial alternative rather than an objection. Compare the total cost of ownership of an internal solution against the proposed platform, including engineering time, maintenance, documentation, user support, and ongoing development rather than only the initial build effort.

“I’m not against building it ourselves if that’s where we believe the best return is. The question is whether we want our engineering team spending time building and maintaining an attribution platform instead of working on the product customers actually buy. If the commercial case stacks up, I’d rather pay £11,288 a year for a capability than carry it as another internal product we have to own indefinitely.”

“What’s the rush? Can this wait until next quarter?”

Don’t manufacture urgency. Instead, explain the commercial cost of delaying the decision. Waiting extends the period during which marketing investment continues to be allocated using incomplete evidence, reducing the opportunity to improve performance sooner.

“We can absolutely wait if that’s the right commercial decision. My concern is that we’ll spend another quarter making the same budget decisions with the same level of evidence we have today. If we believe our current reporting is sufficient, then waiting makes sense. If we don’t, delaying simply postpones the point at which we start making better investment decisions.”

“Where did these benefit assumptions come from?”

Explain that the model is built from existing business performance, not a vendor promise or industry benchmark. Walk through the assumptions behind each benefit line and show which ones are directly measurable versus estimated.

“The benefit side is tied to areas where we already see inefficiency today, marketing spend that lacks revenue visibility, reporting time spent manually reconciling data, and opportunities to improve budget allocation. Where we have certainty, we’ve used actual numbers. Where there’s uncertainty, we’ve modelled a range rather than pretending we can predict the outcome perfectly.”

“How much do you trust the numbers coming out of this thing?”

Acknowledge that imperfect data is normal in marketing measurement. Focus on creating a more reliable decision-making process rather than chasing perfect attribution.

“We’re not trying to create a perfect measurement environment overnight. Marketing data will always have some limitations. The objective is to move from fragmented reporting and assumptions to a more consistent view of what is contributing to revenue. The platform gives us a stronger foundation for decisions, while the 90-day review gives us the opportunity to challenge and improve the assumptions behind the model.”

“Who’s responsible for making sure we actually get this return?”

Show that ownership is tied to the business outcome, not the software itself. Explain who reviews performance, who acts on the insights, and how progress will be measured after implementation.

“The software itself isn’t where the value comes from, the value comes from what we do with the information it gives us. Marketing will own the decisions around budget allocation and campaign performance, with finance reviewing the commercial impact against the assumptions in this business case.”

“How will we know in six months whether this was the right investment?”

Define success before implementation starts. The investment should be judged against the specific business outcomes agreed in the original case: better budget allocation decisions, clearer revenue attribution, reduced reporting effort, and measurable commercial impact.

“We’ll know within six months because we’ve already defined what success looks like: clear visibility into which channels and content contribute to closed revenue, more confident budget allocation decisions, and a measurable reduction in the manual effort required to produce marketing performance reports.”

30 days

Confirm the platform has been implemented successfully and that marketing, CRM, and revenue data are flowing correctly. Validate attribution rules, campaign tracking, CRM lifecycle stages, and reporting accuracy before relying on any commercial outputs.

A signed implementation review confirming data quality issues have been resolved, together with evidence that reporting is being generated from live production data rather than manual reconciliation.

60 days

Review the first optimisation decisions influenced by the platform. The discussion should focus on campaigns, channels, or content where marketing investment has already been increased, reduced, or reallocated as a direct result of the new reporting.

A documented record of budget changes together with the commercial rationale behind each decision and the evidence used to support it.

90 days

Compare actual commercial performance against the financial assumptions presented in the original business case. Review whether projected cost savings, reporting efficiencies, and revenue improvements are beginning to materialise.

An updated ROI model comparing projected and realised performance, together with a recommendation to continue, expand, or revise the investment based on measurable evidence.