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Helping CMOs Speak CFO:BI Tools for Marketing and Finance Collaboration

Updated: 7 days ago


It was supposed to be a simple 4-week performance campaign.

The media team had the creatives lined up, the budget approved, and the ads were already live across Google and Meta. Everything looked smooth until week 3 — then the campaign hit pause.

Why...?

Because finance saw a different number.

In their report, the budget allocation had already hit 90%. But the marketing dashboard said only 52% had been spent. Somewhere in between, spend attribution had diverged and now nobody wanted to be wrong.

The campaign sat frozen for two days. The performance tanked. And both teams quietly blamed the other. This isn’t about some dramatic boardroom disagreement. It’s about everyday execution headaches caused by disconnected BI tools and inconsistent data logic. And it’s costing more than just campaign efficiency.

It’s costing trust.


The Real Cost of Unaligned BI Tools for Marketing and Finance

At a glance, both teams are working toward the same goal, which is growth.

But they approach it differently:

  • Marketing wants speed, experimentation, and visibility across channels.

  • Finance wants precision, traceability, and control over spend.

That’s not a bad thing. What’s bad is when both teams run on dashboards that don’t agree and nobody knows why.

In most financial services firms we’ve worked with, the core issue looks something like this:

  • Campaign cost metrics are built on marketing automation data (e.g., GA4, HubSpot, campaign managers).

  • Finance pulls from ERP systems or cost-center allocations from Snowflake or SQL-based ledgers.

  • Attribution is embedded in dashboards via Tableau or Excel.

  • No shared data model. No documentation. No reconciliation.

So, when finance questions a cost line item or marketing defends a CAC figure — both are right. And both are wrong. Because they’re looking at the same customer journey through different lenses. The tool doesn’t just reflect this misalignment. It amplifies it.

Why Looker Works for Marketing and Finance Collaboration

Looker solves the real issue, not by giving prettier charts, but by enforcing shared data definitions at the backend. It becomes the connective tissue for BI tools for marketing and finance collaboration.

A Shared Definition of Marketing Spend

In Looker, how “Marketing Spend” is calculated is defined once — in LookML — and reused everywhere. Whether finance views it in their internal ledger dashboard or marketing sees it in their campaign overview, it's the same logic, same data source, same timestamp.

Real-Time Data for Finance, Explorability for Marketing

Looker runs on BigQuery. So, both teams query the same live data. That budget update from finance? Reflected in marketing’s report instantly. Real-time collaboration happens when your BI stack supports operational truth.

Trust by Design: Role-Based Access for Both Teams

Need finance to only see cost centers but hide campaign-specific creatives? Done. Need marketing to see spend pacing but not salary allocations? Easy. With Looker’s granular permissions, you never have to compromise security to share insights.

BI Tools for Marketing and Finance Collaboration in Action


Looker for Marketing and Finance Collaboration

Marketing and Finance clashed on campaign costs. Looker nailed it. One of our clients, Digital bank's student loan campaign looked good to Marketing, but Finance flagged costs 40% higher due to missing fees and naming differences. Paused twice.

Looker stepped in and unified everything:

  • LookML: One cost model, fees and all.

  • Explores: Finance by cost center, Marketing by campaign – same logic.

  • Shared Dashboard: Real-time pacing, burn, forecast.

Result? Looker got them aligned. Finance pre-cleared budgets weekly. Marketing launched faster. Approvals went from days to hours. No more screenshot chaos – just shared Looker links. Campaign back on track, teams finally speaking the same data language.

Looker doesn’t just visualize data. It governs how that data is defined, queried, shared, and interpreted across departments.

That’s why CFOs love it. And CMOs grow to trust it.

Because in the long run, the value isn’t just in prettier reports. It’s in faster campaigns. Better approvals. Fewer misunderstandings. Ready to Align Finance and Marketing?

We help CMOs migrate from Tableau to Looker without losing context or speed and most importantly, without re-inventing the wheel.

If you're tired of being the middleman between your analysts and finance, book a free consultation.

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