Marketing Budget Allocator
Enter your yearly marketing budget, stage and business model to get a starting split across SEO, paid ads, content, email and more.
Your business
Recommended allocation
Treat this as a starting point and adjust each quarter based on results.
How the allocator builds your recommendation
Your business stage and business model are the two strongest signals for where marketing money should go. A startup e-commerce brand needs awareness and retargeting fuel. A mature B2B company needs account-based marketing and customer marketing to grow existing accounts. The allocator combines those two inputs into a starting split based on common patterns across marketing programs.
Why a starting allocation is the right mindset
No calculator can replace experimentation. The numbers here are a sensible baseline you can present to your team or your CFO. Your real allocation should change each quarter based on performance: channels beating their targets get more budget, and channels that fall short get cut.
Common mistakes the allocator helps you avoid
- Too much paid media. Putting 60 to 80% of the budget into paid ads starves owned channels like SEO, email and content. Paid ads stop working the day you stop paying, while owned channels compound.
- Too little creative. You cannot outspend weak ads, because the creative does most of the work. That is why e-commerce plans include a creative budget by default.
Frequently asked questions
What if my industry is not in the list?
Pick the closest fit. The four models cover most small and mid-market businesses. If your situation is unusual, such as a regulated industry, hardware or a marketplace, expect to adjust the split by hand.
Should I include salaries in this budget?
No. The tool assumes program spend: media, software, agencies, freelancers and content production. Salaries are usually tracked separately.
Why does the mature stage put so much into retention and email?
Keeping existing customers usually costs far less than winning new ones, and mature businesses have a customer base worth defending and growing. If you are mature and still spend most of your budget on acquisition, you are likely leaving margin on the table.