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Brand Spend Needs Measurement, Not Just Revenue‑first Optimization

Trying to answer this today: How do I allocate spend for brand… and how do I prove it worked? Because it's budgeting season, aren't we all so lucky? :) And like any good marketer, I built a little framework to guide us. Every marketing leader I know is living in the same Google Sheet right now, organizing, defending, breaking (and reloading) line items, and asking the same question. Meanwhile, we are asked to hit bigger pipeline and revenue targets with fewer people in a market that changes every day. No wonder brand spend is usually the first thing questioned and cut. It’s softer than pipeline and it’s super hard to measure. And that’s on us. We did this to ourselves! We’ve spent a decade preaching “revenue-first.” I’m guilty. I stood on the revenue pulpit. And now we are left with extremely optimized campaigns and extremely BORING creative. When measurement becomes the story, we will always optimize for what's easiest to measure, not what actually moves people. So, I spent a little time writing up how I'm thinking about brand spend next year, and (in a perfect world) how we're planning to measure it at Docebo. Publishing tonight at 8pm EST on the Revenue Diaries.