Digital is not a department. It’s an ecosystem that bridges brand, revenue, and operational insight. Treating it as a marketing line item misses the point.
Executive summary
The traditional view of digital as a subset of marketing is no longer fit for purpose. In a data-driven world where every click, conversion, and complaint leaves a measurable footprint, digital touches every corner of the organisation – from brand to bottom line, logistics to loyalty. Yet, many companies still structure digital around vanity metrics, misreporting success as impressions and reach, rather than revenue and retention.
This paper argues that digital should not reside solely within the marketing department. Instead, its stewardship requires shared ownership between marketing, finance, and operations. It is guided by a CMO who is strategically aligned with revenue goals and supported by dedicated digital optimisation specialists. We unpack the flaws of single-department control, the limitations of brand-first thinking, and why a new digital operating model is essential for sustainable growth.
Digital is more than marketing. It's revenue infrastructure
Let's start with the obvious: marketing departments were never designed to manage pipelines. Their core strength lies in storytelling, creativity, and emotional resonance - all vital ingredients that build brand equity. But when it comes to digital, that skillset is too narrow. Because digital isn’t just a communications channel; it’s a real-time engine of customer acquisition, lead qualification, stock insight, payment tracking, and operational performance.
Yet in most organisations, the people running digital campaigns are rarely responsible for those items that truly move revenue - cost per acquisition, stock availability, credit eligibility, or even whether the customer might complete a payment.
Instead, they chase impressions, clicks, and shares. They report on likes as if they were leads. They call campaigns successful because engagement was “high”, while ignoring the fact that no one converted, or worse, that the site failed to load, or the contact centre never returned a call.
This is not a criticism of marketers. It’s a structural flaw in how companies govern digital.
The dangerous overreliance on vanity metrics
Vanity metrics may be easy to report, but are hard to justify when revenue doesn’t follow. The digital ad industry is rife with examples of inflated success - cheap impressions on bottom-of-page placements, programmatic ads hidden behind content, bots inflating click-through rates. It’s marketing theatre, and it’s costing companies millions.
Dr Augustine Fou (an industry commentator based in the United States) has written extensively on the possibility that various types of apps on a user’s phone might be loading websites in the background, consuming data and generating fraudulent ad impressions without the user knowing. He asks: “Why would a flashlight app need a hidden web browser loading webpages in the background?” The answer: ad fraud. And yet marketers continue to report those impressions as campaign wins.
This isn't just poor governance - it's brand risk. High traffic to a site that underperforms leads to frustrated users, negative reviews, and long-term erosion of trust. If your payment gateway fails, the product isn’t in stock, or no one follows up on a lead, that’s not a marketing problem. That’s an operational failure. But, if marketing is the only team measuring success, these gaps never get closed.
One campaign, one goal, one objective
Digital platforms are ruthlessly efficient. They reward clarity and punish confusion. This is why every digital campaign should follow a simple structure: one goal, one objective.
Mixing multiple goals in a single campaign - like chasing impressions and likes in the same flight - creates immeasurable noise. It also introduces the temptation to cherry-pick whatever result looks best for the executive dashboard.
In contrast, a campaign with a clear goal (e.g. conversion) and a specific objective (e.g. lead form submissions) provides unambiguous performance data. More importantly, it links marketing execution to financial outcomes - and that’s where the power of digital truly lies.
Why digital sits at the centre of a much bigger system
Digital doesn’t stop when the ad is clicked. It triggers a cascade of internal processes - data is captured, leads are routed, stock is queried, payments are processed, and service centres are notified. Every step leaves a digital trail.
The most advanced businesses don’t see digital as a marketing tool. They treat it as a feedback system that informs demand forecasting, campaign strategy, store planning, customer service, and product development. Every campaign becomes a data asset. Every metric tells a story.
For example:
- If ads generate high traffic but low sales, the issue may be pricing, UX friction, or fulfilment capability.
- When a product attracts interest but is repeatedly out of stock, the data should inform procurement.
- When contact centres are overwhelmed, campaign pacing and SLA alignment should be recalibrated.
This is operational intelligence. It belongs in the boardroom, not buried in a marketing slide deck.
A new operating model for digital governance
To unlock the true value of digital, organisations must shift from department-led execution to cross-functional orchestration.
Here’s what that model looks like:
- The CMO’s role evolves into a revenue and brand steward, not just a brand custodian. They are accountable for topline performance and brand trust.
- A dedicated digital revenue optimisation specialist reports directly to the CMO. This person focuses on analytics, campaign governance, and sharing actionable insights across the organisation. They are not creative; they are a performance architect.
- The brand manager operates alongside - not above - the digital specialist, ensuring alignment between above-the-line brand efforts and below-the-line digital execution.
- Marketing, finance and operations all have skin in the game. Campaigns are planned jointly, budgets are tied to revenue impact, and KPIs are shared.
- All digital functions, from paid media to SEO, social to site analytics, chatbots to call centre SLAs, are integrated into a centralised data platform. This creates a single source of truth, improves coordination, and accelerates decision-making.
Final thought: Digital belongs to the business, not to a department
The companies winning in digital today are not those with the largest media budgets, but those with the clearest operational alignment. They treat digital as a revenue capability, not as a branding exercise. They elevate data over decoration. And they ensure that the insights generated through digital are circulated, scrutinised, and acted on across the entire business.
Marketing can no longer afford to operate in a vacuum. Nor can finance or operations afford to ignore the signals embedded in digital behaviour.
The question is not “who owns digital?” but “who is accountable for making digital work?”
The answer, increasingly, is: “everyone”.
