Forbes Magazine recently published the results of the latest The CMO Survey, providing an overview of how top marketers felt about various marketing-related issues. While the survey revealed a generally high level of optimism among marketing executives across the board, one area suggested a troubling trend: that demonstrating the impact of marketing spend remains a significant challenge for marketing leaders.

Only approximately one-third of the 410 marketers surveyed report that they were able to quantitatively demonstrate the impact and return on investment (ROI) of their marketing efforts. The results were even bleaker when focusing specifically on social media marketing efforts: a scant 15 percent of survey respondents were able to quantitatively demonstrate the effect of social media on their business. Another 36% had a good qualitative sense, but not a quantitative idea (the horror!).

Eventually, CEOs and board members are going to tire of this “spend-not-show” pattern of marketing. Something has to give, and marketing executives need to figure out a way to quantitatively and demonstrably prove their worth.

Fortunately, there are marketing analytics and marketing reports that can easily and quantitatively demonstrate the business value and impact of a marketing executive and his or her team. If your CEO or board members are raising concerns about your efforts, simply produce these 3 marketing analytics reports and quell all questions.

Marketing Generated Sales Revenue ($)

There’s no easier way to speak to a CEO’s heart than to show him or her the money. Filter your Bookings Report by marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) to prove if marketing’s efforts are directly contributing to your bottom line…or not. If you’re looking to increase your marketing budget in order to scale your efforts up and your CEO is resistant, showing an “up-and-to-the-right” report like the one below might be able to sway him. Clearly, marketing has packed enough of a revenue punch over the last year, increasing quarter-over-quarter, to justify an increased budget.

Lead Sources

With how big social media marketing has grown, it’s certainly worrying that so few marketers are able to prove the ROI of their social media efforts. The key is to identify how many leads come from each individual marketing campaign or source. Additionally, drilling deeper allows you to identify which of these sources are most efficient at converting leads to opportunities and opportunities to deals.

Check out this example above. While other campaigns might have produced more overall raw leads, two Twitter campaigns – Twitter #257 and #225 – had tremendously efficient Lead-to-Opp and Opp-to-Deal conversion rates. Perhaps these are the social media lead sources that should be focused on most intently.

Marketing Contribution to Pipeline

One possible source of tension in the office occurs when sales accuses marketing of not carrying their weight, producing enough leads and sufficiently contributing to the sales pipeline. If these accusations are lobbed your way, all you have to do is produce a Pipeline Contribution report to show the direct opportunity pipeline results of marketing efforts. Look at the example below. Over the past three months, the pipeline value from marketing leads has increased substantially. Over that same time period, the value of the pipeline without leads – that is, considering only prospecting efforts and not marketing efforts – has largely stagnated. Now we can find out which team is actually carrying its weight and which one needs to pick up the slack.

Marketers are just beginning to discover the power of quantitative analysis and data-driven reports. When they can fully embrace these capabilities, proving marketing’s value to CEOs, board members and the rest of the company will no longer be as elusive as it once was.