> the whole point of marketing is to generate revenue for the business, albeit indirectly
With varying levels of indirection that's true of nearly all things a company does, though. When IT fixes some sale person's laptop that will have a direct positive impact on that person's sales, and thus on revenue. Spending too little on those IT people would have lost you revenue, conversely spending more might lead to more revenue.
In the end it's all a framework any company can apply as they want. You are right that a marketing department is much more likely to be judged by the company's revenue (attributed by department as much as possible), while maintenance or IT support is unlikely to be judged by that criteria. But imho that's mostly because it's really difficult to judge building maintenance by their contribution to revenue, not because it doesn't make sense to do so if you had the data.
With varying levels of indirection that's true of nearly all things a company does, though. When IT fixes some sale person's laptop that will have a direct positive impact on that person's sales, and thus on revenue. Spending too little on those IT people would have lost you revenue, conversely spending more might lead to more revenue.
In the end it's all a framework any company can apply as they want. You are right that a marketing department is much more likely to be judged by the company's revenue (attributed by department as much as possible), while maintenance or IT support is unlikely to be judged by that criteria. But imho that's mostly because it's really difficult to judge building maintenance by their contribution to revenue, not because it doesn't make sense to do so if you had the data.