Hi, I am Stephanie, founder and creative strategist of Maude House, and nothing makes my left brain and right brain hold hands like a good ROI breakdown. If you want to be a Marketing Manager who does more than guess, vibe, and pray to the algorithm, you need a clean understanding of your company’s revenue. Without that foundation, calculating ROAS, CPA, and true marketing ROI becomes a hot mess of inaccurate numbers and even worse decisions.

Here is how I approach ROI so it is not only accurate but actually useful.

Work with your finance team

Your finance department is your best friend here. They hold the real numbers. Revenue reporting. Profit margins. Cash flow. All the stuff you absolutely need before you start crunching your marketing metrics. Partner with them so you understand:

• How revenue is tracked
• What counts as attributed revenue
• How expenses are categorized
• What timeframes matter most

Without alignment, your ROI math will never match the company’s financial reality.

Review financial reports often

Income statements, balance sheets, and revenue summaries give you a historical view of performance. When you know how revenue moves over time, you can identify seasonal patterns, anomalies, and the actual impact of your campaigns. A Marketing Manager who reads financials confidently is a Marketing Manager who gets invited into strategic conversations.

Use analytics tools to trace revenue back to campaigns

Tools like Google Analytics, CRM platforms, attribution software, and pixel data show you exactly which campaigns are generating revenue. You can track:

• Sales from specific landing pages
• Revenue from email flows
• Sales tied to paid ads
• Conversions from social campaigns

This is how you stop guessing what worked and start proving what worked.

Track revenue by channel

Every marketing channel plays a different role. Some generate direct revenue. Some nurture leads. Some amplify visibility. When you track revenue by channel, you can identify which ones produce the highest ROI and which ones need adjusting or retiring. Think:

• Email marketing revenue
• Paid search revenue
• Social media revenue
• Organic content influenced revenue

Channel level clarity is how you defend budgets and scale intelligently.

Monitor performance over time

One month of data means nothing. Trends over time mean everything. When you analyze long term performance, you can spot:

• Rising acquisition costs
• Decreasing profit margins
• Campaigns that win consistently
• Channels that are losing effectiveness

The best Marketing Managers make decisions based on patterns, not panic.

The bottom line

Accurately calculating ROAS, CPA, and ROI requires clean data, cross team collaboration, and consistent monitoring. When you understand your company’s revenue clearly, your marketing decisions become sharper, your campaigns become more profitable, and your leadership impact skyrockets.

If you want more unhinged but valuable insights on branding, marketing, analytics, and the messy magic of growing a business, join my newsletter. It is where I share the stuff that actually helps you work smarter, think sharper, and show up like the strategist you are becoming.