Your GTM spend isn’t just an expense — it’s an asset

For so long as most of us can bear in mind, go-to-market (GTM) operations — particularly advertising and gross sales — have been handled nearly totally as working bills. The logic was easy: GTM prices are short-term, their advantages too unsure and their ties to monetary outcomes too tenuous to justify something however speedy expensing. However that logic is falling aside.

As causal AI allows us to quantify the time-lagged, materials affect of GTM investments on future enterprise outcomes, we’re standing on the threshold of a radical shift in how we account for, govern and spend money on GTM. A model funding that strikes pricing energy for 4 years isn’t an expense — it’s an asset.

The hidden accounting perception

Let’s begin with one missed however transformative perception: Time lag is the accounting spine of capitalization and amortization.

If an funding’s profit unfolds over time and will be reliably measured, then by GAAP requirements, it qualifies for capital therapy. For many years, advertising and gross sales have failed this check. Not as a result of they didn’t generate long-term worth, however as a result of we couldn’t show it. Now we will.

Causality modifications the sport

Causal AI — particularly when paired with time-series modeling and directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) — lets us isolate which GTM actions drive which monetary outcomes, with what delay and the way materials that affect is over time.

This creates a traceable, audit-grade foundation for treating sure GTM actions not as throwaway spend, however as sturdy, depreciable property. This isn’t theoretical. It’s operational and already influences how CFOs, boards and auditors interpret GTM line gadgets.

Dig deeper: Why causal AI works when other forecasting models fail

Reclassifying GTM spend: What may shift from OpEx to CapEx

Right here’s how this mannequin performs out throughout GTM subfunctions in each B2C and B2B contexts:

✅ = Robust case for causal-driven capitalization.
⚪ = Case relies on proof high quality and time horizon.

Time lag in motion: B2B vs. B2C

B2B: LinkedIn’s ABM technique

In 2019, LinkedIn launched a multi-year account-based advertising (ABM) program focusing on senior HR, gross sales and advertising decision-makers. Key GTM property included:

• CMO-level thought management content material.
• Business whitepapers and webinars.
• Focused gross sales instruments.
• Lengthy-cycle lead nurturing by way of ABM tech stack.

Causal chain: Minimal affect in 12 months 1, however by 12 months 3, the initiative delivered:

• 42% enhance in enterprise LTV.
• 26% carry in upsell velocity.

Time lag: 12–18 months to affect shopping for heart habits; whole affect over 3–4 years.

Capitalization rationale: Reusable content material, gross sales property and playbooks justify partial CapEx therapy, just like internal-use software program.

B2C: Nike’s ‘You Can’t Cease Us’ marketing campaign

In 2020, Nike launched an emotion-driven, international marketing campaign highlighting resilience and unity.

• A 90-second montage with no product pitch.
• Cross-platform digital and TV distribution.

Causal chain:

• 50M+ views within the first week.
• 25% spike in engagement.
• 11% digital gross sales progress.
• Favorability carry in key markets.

Time lag: Results peaked inside 1–2 months; minimal carryover after 6 months.

Capitalization rationale: Regardless of excessive ROI, the steep decay curve means this stays a short-lived working expense.

Comparability snapshot

What GTM leaders are usually not asking (however should)

To shift from spend to stewardship, GTM leaders want to start out asking:

• What qualifies as a “dependable and goal” causal mannequin beneath GAAP? It should be auditable, traceable to techniques of report and statistically legitimate.
• The place can we draw the road between asset and efficiency spend? Not each marketing campaign qualifies. Phase short-term exams from long-horizon infrastructure.
• How can we outline helpful life for GTM property? Construct decay curves. A 3-month marketing campaign and a 3-year enablement program are usually not the identical.
• Can this matter earlier than GAAP modifications? Sure. Use inner dashboards, board experiences and capital allocation committees. Affect precedes codification.

Why finance will push again — and how one can win the argument

It’s pure for finance to query any shift in accounting therapy. The secret’s to talk their language — aligning GTM technique with monetary rigor and auditability.

Fiduciary responsibility and GTM’s hidden worth

The 2023 Delaware fiduciary ruling redefined oversight: Boards and executives should now govern how worth is created — not simply whether or not a price was permitted.

In the meantime, intangibles account for over 90% of enterprise worth, but are barely seen on most steadiness sheets. Causal AI affords a bridge:

• Gives audit-grade visibility into GTM’s function in worth creation.
• Helps selective reclassification of spend.
• Permits fair-value disclosures in M&A, impairment and investor reporting.

Dig deeper: AI is transforming GTM teams into fiduciary powerhouses

Towards monetization and inner hedging: The subsequent evolution

Causal modeling doesn’t simply inform us what labored — it quantifies how a lot it labored, when and beneath what circumstances. That opens two transformational frontiers:

1. Monetary monetization of GTM property

Simply as corporations monetize IP portfolios, GTM investments validated by causal fashions could quickly qualify for:

• Securitization: Bundling high-confidence GTM applications into revenue-linked property.
• Insurability: The place causal constancy is excessive, components of GTM spend could also be underwritten for efficiency threat.
• Mortgage services: Borrowing towards the calculated NPV or forecasted LTV of long-cycle GTM initiatives.  That is what CAC/LTV pretends to be, nevertheless it’s not typically understood that CAC is a debt incurred towards future income and most LTV is pure guesstimate.
• Tax remedies: Drawing parallels to R&D credit, authorities our bodies could in the future acknowledge validated GTM investments as capital expenditures with depreciation or credit score worth.

2. Inside hedging towards GTM failure

CFOs can now convert causal outputs into actuarial-grade logic, enabling inner hedging methods that might have been unimaginable beneath correlation-based fashions. Causality turns GTM planning from blind religion into hedgeable foresight.

For instance, a SaaS firm launches a 3-year ABM program projected to generate $36 million in income, however causal fashions reveal a 25% draw back threat. The CFO allocates a $3 million inner reserve — not in money, however as a contingency buffer inside GTM planning. Triggered by causal variance (e.g., declining content material engagement, macro headwinds or gross sales misalignment), this reserve will be:

• Redirected to higher-performing cohorts.
• Reallocated to short-cycle demand applications.
• Or used to buffer timing volatility with out alarming the board.

This isn’t monetary engineering. It’s strategic foresight rooted in causal readability, giving Finance the instruments to mitigate GTM threat with the identical precision utilized to credit score, provide chain or operations.

Causal modeling makes it potential to construct GTM reserves, set off capital reallocation early and defend funding high quality on the board degree — earlier than failure turns into seen in income.

Dig deeper: A 3-step guide to unlocking marketing ROI with causal AI

Rethinking the GTM ledger

We’re not claiming that each one GTM spend turns into CapEx. Campaigns, exams and one-off activations stay OpEx. However the default assumption that GTM = pure expense is now not tenable.

CFOs should now ask:

• What portion of our spend is constructing multi-year worth?
• What are we underreporting on the steadiness sheet?

And GTM leaders should be fluent in:

• Amortization curves.
• Web current worth (NPV).
• Decay-adjusted contribution.

As a result of in a world the place belief, loyalty and strategic affect drive progress — your GTM engine would be the firm’s most respected asset.

Causal AI provides us readability we’ve by no means had earlier than. The one query is whether or not GTM, Finance and the Board are able to act on it.

It’s time to maneuver from spend to stewardship — and to account for GTM not simply as an expense, however because the strategic capital asset it actually is.