Brand marketing in the EBITDA era

We love leadership. They give us our jobs and businesses to thrive within.

They also love EBITDA real big right now. That means on top of producing content, publishing content, watching ROAS, A/B testing campaigns, keeping up with TikTok trends, creating monthly reports, bringing "fresh" ideas, optimizing evergreen campaigns...we've got to prove it all works.

EBITDA stands for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization and in oversimplified terms, it helps investors and business leaders go beyond gross profit (which looks at revenue compared to cost of goods sold) to understand how financing decisions and interest impact bottom line.

TLDR: EBITDA gives contextual financial health metrics against industry peers vs. a self-comparison YoY.

Why you should care

It's important to understand the metrics that leadership and investors are concerned about so we can align brand marketing goals to those of the overall business. This model also helps us as marketers avoid the trap of vanity metrics that look great in reports but aren't driving actual performance.

Showing leadership you're committed to understanding overall business health can also build trust with those watching your performance, leading to more shared decision-making and less providing receipts.

Here are 3 ways to build a marketing plan that impacts EBITDA:

Understand business reports

I'm not suggesting you get a degree in finance. But having a 101 understanding of what metrics are important to your team members with finance degrees will make you a better marketer.

Depending on how cool your team is, you can try requesting key business metrics they're willing to share each month, ask for a monthly review together, and if you're lucky see if someone on your team is willing to train you on what numbers matter.

Don't be discouraged by what you don't understand right away; simply having your eyes on a P&L report every month will start to give you a more complete picture.

Tip: request a YTD P&L at both accrual and cash levels each month

Build your plan around desired outcomes

Work backward from those business goals. Instead of asking how your brand can use the top marketing platforms to your advantage, ask instead what you want your prospects to do, think, or feel. How would you measure that? Then define your channels, messages, cadence, and develop a comprehensive campaign strategy that you can test and optimize.

When leadership asks why you're doing something, you'll have a numbered answer.

When leadership suggests a marketing tactic you don't believe is the right move, you'll have a leg to stand on.

Tip: use a performance reporting dashboard (we like Databox) to track your metrics so you're always ready to show results

Be realistic about attribution modeling

It's simply not possible to attribute each dollar in with each dollar out. I'm so sorry. Particularly with our loss of 3rd party cookies, we'll have to get more resourceful than ever in data collection and calculating return.

What is possible (and recommended) is to look at marketing metrics that can be tied to revenue impact. For example, impressions don't matter unless top of funnel is going up too. Use critical thinking to determine how metrics like customer acquisition cost, lifetime customer value, ROAS, impressions, engagements, and so on will drive revenue for the business. You're smart, make informed assumptions, validate as a team, and keep an eye on revenue. Your ROAS doesn't matter if EBITDA is in the trash.

Tip: start building 1st party data collection points (email lists, subscriptions, CRMs, social) to improve data in a post-?? world

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