There is a moment in many businesses where marketing stops being a cost center and becomes a growth engine. Most businesses never reach that moment. But they could. One of the most critical steps to get there is hiring someone to lead marketing who understands numbers. Someone who cares more about what the data shows than what sounds impressive in a meeting. Someone who can strip away the hype and focus on the levers that actually move the business forward.
Below I explain why this kind of chief marketing officer (CMO) is the right hire. I draw on lessons I have seen in my work. I link to some of my own case studies you might want to read. And I give clear signs to look for when you are hiring, or when you are deciding whether the person currently in that role deserves your trust.
What “Grounded in Numbers” Means
Before I go further, I want to be very clear about what being “grounded in numbers” means — and also what it does not mean.
What it means:
- Someone who tracks more than just how many eyeballs clicked. They follow the full journey: did the click become a prospect, then a customer, then a repeat customer?
- Someone who is able to show the cost of each step: how much it cost to attract, to convert, to nurture, to keep a customer.
- Someone who sets measurable goals, watches progress against them, and changes course when things are not working.
- Someone who demands accountability from the team. Who does not accept vague claims of “brand lift” without proof.
- Someone who is honest enough to say when something is failing, and smart enough to know why.
What it does not mean:
- It does not mean someone who is a data robot, always behind dashboards, never talking about emotion or story. Numbers tell you much; story, trust, human connection still matter.
- It does not mean someone who is paralyzed by data, never making decisions. Sometimes you test, sometimes you take what you know so far and act.
- It does not mean ignoring big picture or longterm brand work altogether. The best people balance long view and short view.
Why Buzzwords Hurt
Let’s talk about buzzwords. “Disruption.” “Synergy.” “Viral.” “Thought leadership.” “Authentic.” These words appear everywhere. They feel good in slide decks. But often they mask weak strategy, unclear tracking, or avoidance of accountability.
Here are the problems with relying on buzzwords:
- They distract from what matters. When marketers talk about “thinking outside the box” or “building community” without also talking about customer lifetime value or cost of acquisition, you end up spending money without measuring what you get.
- They allow vague claims. “We will scale brand awareness” or “create synergy across channels” means something to many people — but often no one can show a number to back it up. As a result, you get blurry results, or results you cannot use to decide what to double down on.
- They hide poor systems. If your marketing leader loves to talk but there is no repeatable process, no measurement, or no clear feedback loops, then growth becomes unpredictable.
- They inflate expectations, then disappoint. When you tell investors or your board you will disrupt the market, you raise the bar. But if you did not define what disruption means, or how success will be measured, you are likely to underdeliver — or fail to show that you did deliver.
Buzzwords are not always bad. But when they are the loudest thing, when they are what people use to judge performance, that is a red flag.
Why Someone Grounded in Numbers Gives a Business an Edge
Here are the reasons why a CMO who is not into buzzwords but is deeply grounded in numbers gives your business a real advantage.
- Waste gets exposed quickly When you track cost per lead, conversion rate, customer retention, and other real metrics, you see what is working and what isn’t. You can stop what is not working, repeat what is working, shift resources. Without numbers, you often keep pouring money into campaigns that look good but do little. For example, in my post “How We Reduced CAC by 40% Without Cutting Ad Spend” I show exactly this: we dug into the data, redefined lead qualification, and found the spending that was simply buying low quality leads. Once we stopped those, the cost per customer dropped, and better leads came in. (See that case study here.)
- Clearer decisions Without clear numbers, decisions are made by instinct, opinion, or what sounds cool. With numbers, you can compare options. You can decide whether to invest in one channel or another. You can choose whether to double down on retention or try new acquisition. You can answer “what will happen if we shift budget from ads to content” rather than guessing.
- Better alignment across team and leadership Numbers are objective. They give people something to rally around. If everyone knows the target for acquisition cost, or lifetime value, or churn, then marketing, sales, product, customer success can align. Without that, teams often pull in different directions, or blame each other when results fall short.
- Risk is smaller, failure is faster If you are tracking metrics, you see signs earlier. Maybe your cost per lead is rising. Maybe conversion rates are slipping. Then you can test, iterate, or stop. If you are not watching, you only notice when performance is bad. By then losses may be large. A number-focused CMO helps you fail fast and learn fast.
- More predictable growth When growth is built on repeatable experiments, reliable channels, and measurable feedback, it becomes much more predictable. If you know that from channel A you get a certain cost per customer, and that retention rate stays, then you can forecast spend and results with more confidence.
- Long term advantage Numbers build trust. Investors, partners, boards, senior leadership respond to clarity of reporting. Also, when you have good history of tracked performance, that becomes a learning asset. You can test more intelligently, predict with more accuracy, and adapt when conditions shift.
Lessons from My Own Cases
Here are real lessons from work I have done that show the difference when someone gets serious about numbers.
- In “How We Reduced CAC by 40% Without Cutting Ad Spend”, the job was not to cut the budget. It was to cut what didn’t produce. We found the campaigns that brought in low quality leads and reallocated. We measured not just leads, but quality of leads. Then we restructured follow up. Putting numbers first meant better leads per dollar, not just more leads.
- From “How a Telehealth Startup Grew From 500 Users a Month to 15,000 Active Subscribers in a Year”: they did not chase grand brand campaigns. They improved how easy it was to sign up, how fast users saw value, and how often they used the service. They watched retention, not just acquisition. They tuned messaging, but always measured impact. Incremental changes earned massive growth.
- From “The Quiet Power of Owned Media: Why Rented Audiences Won’t Save You”: this one taught me that when you rely on platforms you do not control, you are one algorithm change away from chaos. Owned media (email lists, blogs, community) is slower but more stable. It lets you know who is listening, how they behave, how to serve them better. Those are numbers and signals that compound over time.
- From “Marketing in a Downturn: How to Grow When Budgets Shrink”: when budgets tighten, buzzword-driven ideas often sound scarier or bigger than they are. A numbers-driven leader, however, focuses on efficiency, retention, what gives return with fewer resources. That kind of discipline often leads to more sustainable growth.
What to Look For When Hiring a CMO
When you are interviewing or evaluating someone for the marketing helm, here are signs you want. Signs that the person is grounded in numbers and will serve your business well.
| What to Ask / Look for | Why It Matters |
|---|---|
| Can they walk you through examples where marketing spend was causing damage before they changed direction? | Shows they are willing to admit what failed and learn from actual numbers. |
| Can they explain which metrics they track for every major marketing project? | If they can’t list them easily, they may not actually be running by numbers. |
| Do they care about cost per acquisition, lifetime value, retention, churn, conversion rates? And do they know what those are for your business or similar ones? | These metrics matter more than “engagement” or “reach” alone. |
| Do they make marketing reports simple to understand? | If the reports are full of vague statements, fluff, or vague “growth,” that is a red flag. You want clarity. |
| Do they test things often and adjust based on results? | Tests that fail are fine. What matters is what they do with what they learn. |
| Do they build systems? | The difference between chaos and scale is systems: for attracting leads, converting, retaining. Without systems, results bounce up and down. |
| Do they communicate what they are doing in plain speak? | If you need a translator for marketing jargon, then real alignment will suffer. |
What It Costs If You Don’t
Choosing someone who is all buzz and little action can cost you more than you think. I have seen these costs repeatedly.
- Wasted budget It is easy to spend money on flashy campaigns, fancy design, big-name agencies or consultants, or hire people to push content without knowing if it converts. Without metrics, money goes into unproductive marketing that does little for the bottom line.
- Slow growth When marketing is noisy but unfocused, growth comes in fits and starts. You get bursts, then plateaus. Without steady measurement you miss weak spots where performance is slipping, and those holes grow.
- Poor team morale Teams want clarity. They want to know what success looks like. If the leader is all talk, team members spend time chasing vague goals, guessing priorities. That causes stress, burnout, and turnover.
- Missed opportunities If no one is watching metrics, you may miss channels that produce strong returns. You may fail to spot retention levers. You may ignore what your customers are telling you in behavior data. You lose chances to double what is working.
- Harder to scale As a company grows, complexity rises. If you do not have discipline around measurement, you cannot forecast, budget wisely, or expand without leaking value. Problems compound when you try to repeat what worked earlier without precision.
- Loss of credibility Among investors, partners, leadership, or your board, marketing backed by numbers earns trust. Marketing backed by flashy claims and vague story risks credibility. And when the next crisis comes, credibility matters.
How to Make the Transition to a Number-First CMO
If you are reading this and thinking: “We have a leader who leans too much toward buzz, or we have no CMO yet and want to hire right,” here is how you shift toward a number-first approach.
- Audit what you are doing now
- List your marketing channels (ads, content, email, partnerships, events, etc.).
- For each, find or ask for the cost, the benefit (number of leads, customers, revenue), and how you measure them now.
- Identify where you are blind — maybe you know cost to acquire a lead but not cost to acquire a customer. Maybe you know acquisition but not retention.
- Set real metrics for every part of the customer journey Think: from when someone first hears about you, to when they become a customer, to when they come back. What matters at each stage? What numbers tell you if that stage is working?
- Make those metrics transparent Everyone on the marketing team, and leadership usually, should know what numbers are being chased. Weekly / monthly reports should be simple: what were the targets, what were results, what did we learn.
- Create feedback loops When data shows something is underperforming, the plan must include what to do: test a different message, adjust spend, change creative, fix a landing page, try a different audience, etc. Do not let bad numbers linger.
- Hire or train people who understand the numbers If your current team is strong in design or content or storytelling but weak in measurement, either bring someone in who is strong on measurement or train the team. A good CMO builds that capacity.
- Be patient but rigorous Not every test will succeed. Not every experiment will win. But a number-first leader does not get discouraged. They adjust. They double down on what works. They cut what doesn’t. Over time, the accumulation of small wins adds up to real scale.
Case Studies You Should Read
Here are some posts from my work that show this in action. They make the argument better than I can in abstract.
- How We Reduced CAC by 40% Without Cutting Ad Spend — shows what happens when you stop paying for what does not work, shift toward quality over volume.
- How a Telehealth Startup Grew From 500 Users a Month to 15,000 Active Subscribers in a Year — shows what happens when you fix onboarding, retention, and measure every step.
- The Quiet Power of Owned Media: Why Rented Audiences Won’t Save You — shows long term value in channels you own, where you can see what people do over time.
- Marketing in a Downturn: How to Grow When Budgets Shrink — a guide to doing more with less, focused on metrics, not hype.
What That Look Like in Practice
Let me walk through what this looks like when things go right, so you know what to expect if you hire a person like this.
- The CMO starts by reviewing existing channels, costs, leads, conversions, retention. They find quick wins: perhaps dropping one ad channel that has high cost but low lead quality. Or fixing a landing page with poor conversion.
- They set up simple dashboards everyone can understand: cost per lead, cost per customer, retention rate, lifetime value. These are not fancy, but usable.
- They push for small experiments: try different ad creative, different messages, different audience segments. For each experiment, they decide in advance what metric will show success, how long test runs, and what decision to make based on results.
- They reduce waste: maybe creative that is not performing well, or media spend that is cheap but brings low value, is cut. They reallocate to what works.
- They don’t ignore long-term investments: brand trust, content, owned media. Those may not give big returns immediately, but they build durability. And because they are measuring them, they can show progress, not just hope.
- They build a team that is used to asking: “What is our cost per customer here? What is our return on what we spend? If we double spend, what will the growth be?” Team is trained to think in numbers, not in buzz.
How to Tell If Your Current CMO / Marketing Lead Is Doing It
If you already have someone in that role, how do you know if they are the right fit? Here are red flags and green flags.
| Green Flags | Red Flags |
|---|---|
| Shares clear metrics monthly, with commentary: what worked, what did not, and what changes come next. | Reports that are mostly slides with “reach,” “engagement,” “brand vibes,” but without showing cost, conversion, retention. |
| Offers experiments and changes when things lag. | Sticks to doing things the same way even when performance decays. |
| Knows the customer’s journey and can say where drop-offs happen. | No data on drop-offs; just hope that things will improve. |
| Focuses not only on getting new customers but keeping current ones. | All energy on acquisition, none on retention or repeat business. |
| Pushes for clarity in spending: how much per lead, per customer; what spend returns what value. | Accepts vague returns. “We increased awareness,” but no way to tie that awareness to business outcomes. |
Final Thought
When you hire a CMO who is grounded in what can be measured, you are hiring someone who cares about how growth happens, not just how growth sounds. Someone who looks for real returns, who knows that every dollar matters, who builds durable systems.
That kind of hire does more than move numbers up. They build trust in leadership. They stretch your budget further. They help your team grow. They make growth predictable.
If you can find someone like that, or become someone like that, you give your business the chance to not just compete, but to last.
Marketing Unplugged 
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