CFO Framework
A capital allocation framework for paid media
Treat advertising spend the way a treasurer treats cash: with policy bands, horizons and a risk buffer. This is the framework our customers use to defend $1.2B of annual paid-media capital.
Five buckets, one envelope
Every euro of paid-media capital falls into exactly one of five buckets. The bands are policy, not preference — drift outside them triggers a written reallocation memo.
| Bucket | Target band | Role | Typical platforms |
|---|---|---|---|
| Always-on demand capture | 45–55% | Brand search, retargeting, shopping. Predictable ROAS, low variance. | Google Search, Meta retargeting, Spotify retargeting |
| Prospecting & demand creation | 25–35% | Upper-funnel reach. Higher variance, longer payback, builds future demand. | Meta broad, TikTok, Spotify, YouTube |
| Experimentation reserve | 8–12% | New formats, new geos, new audiences. Treated as R&D, not performance. | Any platform under a contained budget cap |
| Strategic optionality | 5–10% | Held back for late-month opportunity, peak inventory or competitive response. | Allocated within 72 hours by the AI router |
| Risk buffer | 3–5% | Never deployed. Covers FX shocks, late client payments and platform freezes. | Held as treasury cash |
Four horizons, four questions
T+0 to T+7
Pacing & headroom
Are we on track to land within ±2% of plan this week?
T+7 to T+30
Mix & efficiency
Is the marginal euro going to the highest-ROAS bucket given current saturation?
T+30 to T+90
Portfolio re-weighting
Has any platform's contribution drifted more than 8pp from policy?
T+90 to T+365
Capital plan
Does next year's budget envelope match the demand curve and treasury runway?
Governance rules
- · Any single platform above 45% of total spend requires CFO approval.
- · Reallocations greater than 5% of monthly envelope require a written memo, logged to the decision register.
- · The risk buffer is never deployed without a treasury sign-off and a documented contingency event.
- · Bands are reviewed quarterly; the review is logged whether or not bands change.
How ADmetric AI enforces this
Set bands once. The platform monitors drift in real time, blocks transfers that would breach a band, generates the memo when a reallocation is needed, and ships a quarterly review pack auto-populated from your actual ledger.