Reframing Marketing ROI to Return on Objectives with Karl Van den Bergh

Karl Van den Bergh is the Chief Market Officer at Illumio, known as the world’s first breach containment platform (built on AI and designed for Zero Trust). Over the course of more than 25 years, Karl has held leadership roles in Marketing, Product and as a GM in Cloud, Analytics and Cybersecurity businesses, including SAP, Gigamon, Datastax, and Tibco.Karl joins Jon Miller and Sydney Sloan to share his insights on why marketing leaders need to communicate with the C-suite using the language of the board, what it means to run a marketing team like a predictable sales org, and how to get buy-in on investing in brand by tying it to Return on Objectives, not ROI. Karl also dives into how to overcome ‘The CMO Tax’ and what his team is doing to stay top of mind, both for customers and LLMs.Episode TakeawaysEarn executive trust by speaking the language of business, particularly sales, first. For example, Karl Van den Bergh leads every executive and board conversation with pipeline contribution and bookings, rather than top-of-funnel metrics, because those are the numbers the C-suite and CFO already understand and care about. Forget about impressions or MQLs; instead, anchor the marketing narrative to revenue outcomes before expanding to broader brand metrics.Running marketing like a sales organization, with targets, over-assignment of pipeline, and a forecast, creates predictability, which earns trust with the CEO and CFO. That trust is critical for securing investment in longer-horizon brand and awareness initiatives.Don't create a new category unless you have absolutely no choice. Category creation is extraordinarily expensive and slow, requiring years of market education before revenue follows.Reframe success internally from ROI to "Return on Objectives" when selling brand investment. Rather than trying to tie every awareness dollar directly to bookings, Karl uses a Return on Objectives framework: define the objective (e.g., be top-of-mind when buyers enter the market), set metrics tied to that objective (web visits, content downloads from target accounts), and benchmark performance against industry standards. This makes non-pipeline investments defensible and credible to peers in the C-suite.Standout Quote“Advice to all CMOs out there, do not create a category unless you absolutely have to. Because it is so hard.” - Karl Van den BerghGuest LinksLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karlvandenbergh/ Illumio Website: https://www.illumio.com/ Mentioned in this EpisodeAnup Singh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anupvsingh/ Andrew Rubin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewsrubin/ Brian Gentile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-gentile-b1376/ Rick Wootten: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickwootten/ Raghu Nandakumara: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raghunandakumara/ Ryan Farsai: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanfarsai/  Profound: https://www.tryprofound.com/ More from The B2B CMO ProjectWebsite: https://www.b2bcmoproject.com/ Jon Miller: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonmiller2/ Sydney Sloan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sydsloan/ More Episodes: https://www.b2bcmoproject.com/podcasts