How to quantify the value of brand in B2B tech

We all know it: B2B technology brands face long sales cycles, complex buying committees, and significant competitive pressure in their sales and marketing efforts. What we may not all know, or might not be quite sure how to communicate, is the value of brand in this process. Often viewed as a discretionary expense rather than a strategic asset, brand is actually a lever for revenue, margin, and enterprise value. This guide outlines how to frame brand investment in language that resonates with CFOs, CROs, and CEOs—connecting brand performance directly to financial outcomes.

Where do we begin? Obviously, with the numbers. Strong brands don’t simply look better; they perform better. When framed through a revenue lens, brand’s commercial value becomes undeniable. Let’s explore some of the ways brand positively impacts revenue. 

Brand’s impact on revenue:

• Brand Loyalty Builds Margin Protection: A strong brand commands price premiums. Customers stay not just because your solution works, but because they trust your expertise and believe in the value of the relationship. This loyalty creates margin “buffer” in the P&L, insulating the company from competitive pricing wars and keeping it out of commoditized rat races. Strong brands win on value, not discounts.
• Brand Power Fuels Expansion Revenue: When customers trust your brand and understand the breadth of your expertise, cross-sell and upsell motions become easier. Brand clarity and consistency reinforce your ability to introduce new offerings to existing customers, strengthening net revenue retention (NRR) and lifetime value.
• Brand Recognition Shortens Sales Cycles: Sales cycles accelerate when prospects already understand who you are, what you do, and why you matter. Brand recognition reduces the number of funnel stages required to build credibility, removing friction, increasing speed, and reducing customer acquisition cost (CAC).
• Brand Trust Improves Close Rates: A trusted brand lowers perceived risk, especially in high-stakes B2B tech decisions. When your reputation precedes your sales team, objections decrease, procurement barriers soften, and more deals advance to contract.
• Brand Drives New Pipeline Opportunities: Awareness and sentiment create surface area for opportunity. Prospects who have a positive, pre-existing perception of your brand are more likely to explore your solutions, respond to outreach, and self-qualify into the funnel, delivering organic opportunities not sourced through outbound efforts. The result is top-of-funnel pipeline growth driven by brand.er needs.  

Next, let’s consider brand’s impact on organizational goals and objectives. When CMOs reposition brand as a business-driving function, the conversation shifts from “cost center” to “growth engine.” 

Brand’s impact on business goals

• Aligning Brand Investment to Business Outcomes: Consider how brand building efforts are enabling your organization to achieve its business objectives. For instance, how are we raising awareness in priority markets and how is that translating to new sales opportunities as it directly ties back to organizational goals around market expansion? Or, how are our brand building efforts helping to increase credibility and authority in our target verticals and how is that enabling positively impacting our ability to price at a premium? Demonstrate how what you’re doing in brand ties directly to corporate objectives. 
• Aligning Marketing KPIs to the P&L: Marketing metrics only matter (to the C-Suite) if they map to financial results. Metrics like share of voice, awareness lift, or NPS should be used as leading indicators of the business outcomes executives care about such as pipeline volume and new customer value, sales velocity, market penetration, and lifetime value. Carry the KPIs through to demonstrate brand’s impact on the business. 
• Improving the Quality of the Customer: A strong brand attracts higher-value customers, those with bigger budgets and who close faster, churn less, expand more, and are more aligned with your strategic direction. Brand marketing isn’t just about filling the funnel; it’s about improving the value of every account within it.

Now that we’ve summarized brands impact on the business, how can we effectively communicate this value to the C-Suite? By tying brand-driven loyalty and market share more directly to financial performance. Below are some examples of how to think about approaching these types of metrics.

Brand loyalty and market penetration

• Average Deal Value by Lead Source: Brand-originated leads typically deliver higher deal values because they come from better-informed prospects with elevated expectations. Mapping deal size to lead source, and then comparing that to other lead sources, can help quantify brand’s contribution to revenue quality—not just volume.
• Securing Market Share in New or Underperforming Markets: When entering new verticals or geographies, brand awareness becomes the foundation of market penetration. Without a baseline understanding of who you are, performance marketing has to work harder to convey authority and becomes significantly more expensive. A strong brand, as conveyed through its reputation, authority, and credibility, lowers the cost of market entry and accelerates time to traction.
• How Awareness Converts to Pipeline: Increased awareness consistently correlates with pipeline growth, creating opportunities where they wouldn’t otherwise exist. Brand-driven visibility expands audience reach, increases consideration, and creates earlier engagement, ultimately driving attributed revenue
• Share of Voice as a Predictor of Future Revenue: In B2B tech markets, the brands that capture greater share of voice today often capture greater share of revenue tomorrow. Share of voice is one of the clearest leading indicators of competitive advantage and should be tied back to the top-of-funnel opportunities and pricing premiums it helps to create. 

With all this in mind, CMOs can reframe how they approach brand-related budgets discussions with their CFO and CEO counterparts. When brand dollars can be linked to impact and financial outcomes, the discussion becomes far more productive. As you contemplate your own situation, consider the following steps to ensure you bridge the gap between brand value and C-Suite perception. 

Aligning budget to impact

1. Define what the investment is trying to influence: Awareness, Perception, Positioning, Category leadership, Customer experience.
2. Identify KPIs that indicate business movement: Social share of voice, Thought leadership engagement, Brand recall and recognition, NPS or customer sentiment, Website authority and organic visibility.
3. Don’t stop there. Align indicators to financial / P&L outcomes to ensure C-Suite sees the value: Increased pipeline volume, Faster market penetration, Price premiums, Higher customer lifetime value, Lower CAC, Stronger retention and expansion revenue.  

While many marketers stop at KPIs identification, those who win internal support for brand follow the thread through to business impact. In the eyes of your C-Suite, brand isn’t about logos, campaigns, or messaging, it’s about business performance. When marketers connect brand investment to revenue acceleration, market advantage, and bottom-line impact, brand becomes a strategic priority, not a discretionary spend.

Want more? Need help connecting the dots for your C-Suite? Need an objective friend to validate your thinking? Reach out to schedule a time to connect with me/our team so we can help!