Cash flow
The process includes the conceptual linking of marketing activities to intermediate marketing outcome metrics to cash flow drivers of the business, as well as the validation and causality characteristics of an ideal metric. Cash flow both short-term and over time is the ultimate metric to which all activities of a business enterprise, including marketing, should be causally linked through the validation of intermediate marketing measures; therefore the process of validating the intermediate outcome measures against short-term and long-term cash flow drivers is necessary to forecast and improve the return.