EOFY: Does it matter anymore for marketing budgets?
For years, the end of the financial year (EOFY) was a fixture on every marketer’s calendar. Retailers would clear shelves, customers would reassess big-ticket commitments like health insurance, and marketing budgets would be hurriedly spent before the clock struck midnight on 30 June. The logic was simple: use it or lose it. But in 2025, does EOFY still matter? Or has the digital era rendered it just another date on the calendar?
Once upon a time, EOFY was a reliable sales event. It shaped campaign calendars and drove a sense of urgency for both brands and consumers. But as digital commerce has matured, the rules have changed. Now, anyone can shop for a new car, switch insurance, or buy a TV at 2am on a Sunday. The boundaries that once defined retail cycles have blurred.
The changing face of EOFY
We’ve seen a shift from seasonal sprints to an always-on, personalised approach. The new mantra? Be there for the customer in the right place, at the right time. Marketers now chase every micro-moment and sales event, never quite sure when the next sugar hit will come. This has led to a focus on short-term wins and a heavy tilt towards performance channels: those that are easy to measure, quick to optimise, and deliver results for the boardroom.
But there’s a catch…
The pitfalls of short-termism
As marketers double down on digital, the risk of missing the bigger picture grows. Mutinex’s latest Marketing ROI Index report for Q1 2025 paints a stark picture: in the scramble for ROI efficiency, Australian brands have shifted an average of 18 per cent of their marketing budgets to digital channels over the past two years, with some reallocating as much as 45 per cent. Linear TV, once the king of reach, has seen its share of spend drop from 32 per cent to 25 per cent year-on-year.
On the surface, this looks like smart business: more targeted, more efficient, less waste. But dig into the numbers and a warning emerges. As spend on linear TV fell 7 percentage points, its share of revenue dropped by 5 per cent. In other words, chasing efficiency on paper has come at a real cost to the bottom line. And the obsession with channel-by-channel optimisation can lead to a loss of brand impact, eroding the very revenue marketers are trying to protect.
The C-Suite credibility gap
It’s not just numbers that are raising eyebrows. A study by Fournaise found that 74 per cent of CEOs believe marketers focus too much on the latest trends – but struggle to demonstrate how these actually drive business outcomes. There’s reams of data underlining that CEOs neither understand nor trust marketing metrics, and that marketing is struggling to show how it delivers hard business growth.
The result? A credibility gap at the top table, and a growing demand for robust, data-driven decision-making. So, what’s the answer?
Why robust measurement matters
In a world where EOFY is no longer the anchor it once was, marketers need a new compass. It’s not enough to chase the next big thing or optimise for the next quarter. Marketers need to understand the true drivers of growth – across all channels, all year round. This is where market mix modeling (MMM) comes into its own.
Unlike media mix models that focus narrowly on channel performance, MMM takes a big-picture view. It brings together sales, marketing spend, external factors (like seasonality and economic shocks), and even those elusive brand effects, to show what’s really moving the needle. The best MMM solutions, like Mutinex’s GrowthOS, go even further, integrating real-time data, scenario planning, and AI-powered insights to help marketers make confident, future-facing decisions.
Crucially, Mutinex’s models are designed to avoid the pitfalls of overfitting to past business states. By leveraging our time varying model and constantly analysing hundreds of thousands of external data points – from geography to population, weather, public holidays, even black swan events like the tariffs – customers can ensure that their recommendations are robust, relevant, and ready for whatever the market throws at them next.
The bottom line
EOFY might not be the marketing event it once was, but the need for clarity, confidence, and credible measurement has never been greater. In a world defined by uncertainty and complexity, marketers who invest in robust, holistic measurement will be the ones who find, and keep, their edge. The future belongs to those who can see the whole picture, not just the next sale.
