Stop Being Seduced by Big, Shiny Numbers
CEOs love a big return. Who wouldn’t? When a marketing leader touts a $14:$1 return on investment, it sounds like a cause for champagne. But here’s the catch: that number doesn’t always mean what you think it means. In fact, it may be masking inefficiencies that are quietly draining your business.
That’s the dangerous thing about marketing ROI—it can look spectacular on the surface while hiding deep flaws beneath it. If you don’t demand transparency in how those numbers are calculated, you might be celebrating an illusion.
In The B2B Marketing Revolution®, I point out that “23% of middle-market B2B companies earn a $3:$1 or $4:$1 MROI, making it the most common MROI range realized among survey respondents.” Think about that for a moment. The majority of companies aren’t seeing sky-high ratios. So when you hear extreme results, your first instinct should be to question the math.
Expose the Inflation in ROI Calculations
Most ROI figures are inflated because of one simple fact: companies cut corners in their calculations. They don’t include all costs. They overstate revenue instead of focusing on gross profit. They want the numbers to look sexy, and they make the formula fit the story.
“Bear in mind that most companies fail to include marketing team compensation in their MROI calculations. They also generally use revenue versus gross profit in their calculations. So these numbers might be inflated if you take a purist position on the formula.” — The B2B Marketing Revolution®
Let’s be real: if you’re not including the full cost of your marketing operation—people, tools, agencies, and everything in between—you’re lying to yourself. And worse, you’re making million-dollar decisions on bad data.
Where ROI Gets Skewed Most Often
The biggest blind spots I see when CEOs review their marketing ROI:
- Excluding team compensation. Salaries, benefits, bonuses—these are real costs and must be factored in.
- Using revenue instead of gross profit. Revenue looks bigger, but profit is what fuels growth. Ignore it at your peril.
- Ignoring opportunity costs. Time and resources spent on underperforming campaigns take away from higher-return opportunities.
- Cherry-picking time frames. Highlighting one strong quarter while ignoring longer-term trends paints a false picture.
Demand Transparency on the Formula
Battle 4 of the 12 Battles™ Framework is all about discipline with your data. That discipline starts with defining the formula you’ll accept for calculating ROI—and refusing to accept anything less.
You can’t allow your marketing team or agency to play fast and loose with definitions. You need a single, transparent formula that accounts for every cost, ties outcomes to gross profit, and reflects the true picture of marketing’s impact.
The Formula I Recommend
Here’s what a disciplined ROI calculation should look like:
(Gross Profit Attributed to Marketing – Total Marketing Costs) / Total Marketing Costs = MROI
Anything else is window dressing.
Spot the Hidden Inefficiencies Behind Big Numbers
Even when the ROI math is technically accurate, massive returns can still mislead you. Why? Because big numbers can distract from the inefficiencies lurking under the surface.
A campaign that delivers a $14:$1 return might look unstoppable. But if the CAC (customer acquisition cost) is higher than it should be, you’re still leaving money on the table. If the campaign is pulling in the wrong type of customer—low lifetime value, high churn—you’re setting yourself up for long-term disappointment.
And if your ROI calculation ignores the cost of the team running the campaign, that big shiny $14:$1 might be a far more modest $7:$1 once the math is done correctly.
Questions Every CEO Should Ask Before Celebrating ROI
- Did the ROI calculation use gross profit or just revenue?
- Were marketing team salaries and overhead included?
- How does this ROI compare to industry benchmarks for similar strategies?
- What’s the CAC and the LTV (customer lifetime value) of the customers acquired?
- Did this campaign cannibalize sales from other channels instead of creating true net-new growth?
If your team can’t answer those questions clearly and confidently, the ROI you’re being sold isn’t real.
Celebrate Discipline, Not Vanity
As a CEO, you can’t afford to fall for vanity metrics or inflated ROI stories. Your job is to push for discipline and truth. And here’s the truth: true marketing success isn’t about hitting the flashiest ratio. It’s about ensuring every dollar invested delivers maximum return, with no blind spots or creative math hiding the inefficiencies.
That requires a culture shift. It means rewarding transparency over theatrics. It means refusing to accept numbers without understanding the formula behind them. And it means holding your team—and your partners—accountable to the purist definition of ROI.
Build a Foundation of Trustworthy Data
Here’s the good news: once you demand accuracy, everything changes. You stop guessing. You stop celebrating illusions. You start seeing where marketing truly drives profit and where it doesn’t. That knowledge gives you the power to make smarter, faster, more confident decisions.
It’s the difference between gambling with your marketing budget and treating it like the strategic investment it’s meant to be.
That’s what Battle 4 is about: refusing to let garbage inputs drive your strategy. Refusing to settle for “close enough.” And refusing to pat yourself on the back for wins that don’t actually exist.
By Lori Turner-Wilson, RedRover CEO/Founder, Internationally Best-Selling Author of The B2B Marketing Revolution™: A Battle Plan for Guaranteed Outcomes
Taking Action
The above insights are part of hundreds of best practices found in The B2B Marketing Revolution™: A Battle Plan for Guaranteed Outcomes — the playbook that middle-market B2B CEOs and marketing leaders lean on to scale. Backed by a groundbreaking research study, this book offers time-tested best practices, indispensable KPIs for benchmarking, insights on where your dollars are best spent, and, above all, the proven 12 Battles™ Framework for generating guaranteed marketing outcomes. The B2B Marketing Revolution™ is a battle-hardened approach to becoming an outcomes-first leader who’s ready to shake up the status quo, invest in high-payoff market research and optimization, and — yes — even torch what’s not serving your endgame. Download more than 50 templates, scripts, and tools from the book on the Battle Reader Hub.
If you’d like to talk about how to build a marketing engine that delivers predictable results — whether you want to build it yourself or tag in our team to lead the way — we’d be delighted to help you get started.
