How to create and manage your digital marketing budget [free templates included]
Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2024 9:47 am
How much will the website redesign cost? How much will digital advertising spend? Should we invest in more content creation? These are just some of the questions marketers and businesses are asking themselves right now.
In this article we aim to offer you a guide to creating and managing your digital marketing budget from start to finish.
Marketing budget
A marketing budget outlines all the money a company plans to spend on marketing-related projects, typically during a quarter or an entire year. Marketing budgets can include expenses such as digital advertising, sponsored web content, new marketing staff, blog domain registration, and even marketing automation software.
Marketing budgets can be difficult to manage for both small and large businesses.
If you own a small business , you may be wondering what marketing expenses you should start with. If you're a large company, having multiple marketing teams or operations in play can make it difficult to ensure everyone in the department is getting what they need.
So, which area of your marketing efforts should you invest your money in?
First focus: digital media. Digital media accounts for more than half of global advertising spending, including in the United States. This means initiatives that target people on desktop computers, search engines, video streaming platforms, social networks and mobile devices.
Given the success of digital marketing today, you might want to consider spending at least half of your marketing budget on some of these digital channels. Let’s talk about other ways to allocate your marketing budget.
Digital marketing budget allocation
When creating a marketing budget, there are a few elements to consider when planning expenses:
Software – When it comes to digital and even print media, you may need software to create your marketing campaigns or handle daily processes.
Freelancers: If you have a temporary campaign or want to test a new marketing strategy , you may need to hire a short-term freelancer before hiring a full-time worker.
New Staff : When hiring full-time employees, you'll want to budget for costs including computers, technology, benefits, and the needs related to bringing on that talent .
Advertising : Project a budget for how much money you will spend on paid opportunities such as physical ads, native ads, sponsored content, search engine ads, and social media promotions.
Content Creation – When you create gambling data russia content like videos, photos, or even blog posts, you’ll need to put in paid time. Make a budget for how much money will go into creating this content so you can adjust accordingly based on your ROI .
→ Download now: 12 free templates to create your marketing and digital marketing budget. Completely customizable.
How to create a marketing budget
Knowing how to use Excel or spreadsheets alone won't help you understand how you'll spend your marketing dollars this year and next. Creating a solid marketing budget starts with knowing what this budget will be used for and which marketing teams it will represent.
1.- Know the Buyer's Journey
The Buyer's Journey is the journey your potential customer takes as they "travel" from prospect to paying customer. Knowing your buyer's journey allows you to understand how your audience interacts with your marketing and where to set goals and budget to best reach those customers.
To define the buyer's journey, we suggest you ask yourself these questions:
How do your prospects and customers typically discover your products/services?
What do you need to know before making a purchase?
How many visits to the site are there per month?
How many leads do you generate per month and how many of them convert into paying customers?
What is the cost of generating new leads and then converting them into customers?
What is the typical value/revenue of each lead?
This process should point out what marketing tactics are working (and what aren't), where you need to modify your marketing objectives, and where you can focus your marketing budget.
2.- Align your budget with your marketing objectives.
What you spend and where you spend it will depend on what you are trying to accomplish.
So, when you start building your marketing budget, make sure you only spend money on things that your current marketing goals require – goals set based on your audience and their journey from prospect to customer. These could include:
Display ads to promote a new product you're launching this year.
Sponsored social media posts to generate followers for your new Facebook page.
Paid search engine ads to drive traffic (and purchases) to a specific product page.
Hire bloggers to get more organic search traffic to your business website.
3.- Be careful with hidden costs.
One of the great benefits of having and maintaining a budget spreadsheet is that it helps you avoid end-of-quarter or end-of-year freakouts when you realize, “Wow… what did I spend all that on?”
In many cases, unanticipated costs can force marketers to shell out cash they weren't planning to spend. Product marketing offers a perfect example. When people allocate budget for product marketing, they tend to think in terms of product launches and promotional activities.
Which is certainly an important part. But another area of focus to remember is to set aside resources to conduct research and message testing long before the product hits the market. Having conversations with customers about a product’s pain points can be critical to shaping messaging and having a truly successful launch.
4.- Remember where your priorities are.
Marketing is full of add-ons and extras, upsells and “premium” versions. One of the best ways to evaluate what’s nice to have versus what’s absolutely necessary is to (you guessed it?) organize all your expenses.
By monitoring where your budget is being allocated and checking that spending against the results you're getting, it will be much easier to identify what should continue to get budget and what should be eliminated.
5.- Spend your marketing budget wisely.
Having a spreadsheet with all your expenses listed doesn't mean you have to fill out absolutely everything that's there and we've mentioned in this article. The idea is not to use an "always spend more" marketing approach.
Instead, the approach—especially in our turbulent times—is more about “always spending wisely.” Not all marketing spending is mandatory, but it’s ideal to be aware of all the possibilities that exist, to guide your thinking and help you not overlook any hidden expenses or costs in your marketing efforts.
6.- Get ready to measure ROI.
When you invest a certain amount of money in a certain area, you'll want to identify whether your budget helped or hurt you, in order to plan future budgets. The best way to do this is by measuring ROI, or return on investment.
If the money you invested in a particular area of marketing has resulted in higher revenue for your business, it is very likely that you will want to increase that investment for the next quarter or year. If, on the other hand, the money invested has not returned anything, then you should review your budget.
In this article we aim to offer you a guide to creating and managing your digital marketing budget from start to finish.
Marketing budget
A marketing budget outlines all the money a company plans to spend on marketing-related projects, typically during a quarter or an entire year. Marketing budgets can include expenses such as digital advertising, sponsored web content, new marketing staff, blog domain registration, and even marketing automation software.
Marketing budgets can be difficult to manage for both small and large businesses.
If you own a small business , you may be wondering what marketing expenses you should start with. If you're a large company, having multiple marketing teams or operations in play can make it difficult to ensure everyone in the department is getting what they need.
So, which area of your marketing efforts should you invest your money in?
First focus: digital media. Digital media accounts for more than half of global advertising spending, including in the United States. This means initiatives that target people on desktop computers, search engines, video streaming platforms, social networks and mobile devices.
Given the success of digital marketing today, you might want to consider spending at least half of your marketing budget on some of these digital channels. Let’s talk about other ways to allocate your marketing budget.
Digital marketing budget allocation
When creating a marketing budget, there are a few elements to consider when planning expenses:
Software – When it comes to digital and even print media, you may need software to create your marketing campaigns or handle daily processes.
Freelancers: If you have a temporary campaign or want to test a new marketing strategy , you may need to hire a short-term freelancer before hiring a full-time worker.
New Staff : When hiring full-time employees, you'll want to budget for costs including computers, technology, benefits, and the needs related to bringing on that talent .
Advertising : Project a budget for how much money you will spend on paid opportunities such as physical ads, native ads, sponsored content, search engine ads, and social media promotions.
Content Creation – When you create gambling data russia content like videos, photos, or even blog posts, you’ll need to put in paid time. Make a budget for how much money will go into creating this content so you can adjust accordingly based on your ROI .
→ Download now: 12 free templates to create your marketing and digital marketing budget. Completely customizable.
How to create a marketing budget
Knowing how to use Excel or spreadsheets alone won't help you understand how you'll spend your marketing dollars this year and next. Creating a solid marketing budget starts with knowing what this budget will be used for and which marketing teams it will represent.
1.- Know the Buyer's Journey
The Buyer's Journey is the journey your potential customer takes as they "travel" from prospect to paying customer. Knowing your buyer's journey allows you to understand how your audience interacts with your marketing and where to set goals and budget to best reach those customers.
To define the buyer's journey, we suggest you ask yourself these questions:
How do your prospects and customers typically discover your products/services?
What do you need to know before making a purchase?
How many visits to the site are there per month?
How many leads do you generate per month and how many of them convert into paying customers?
What is the cost of generating new leads and then converting them into customers?
What is the typical value/revenue of each lead?
This process should point out what marketing tactics are working (and what aren't), where you need to modify your marketing objectives, and where you can focus your marketing budget.
2.- Align your budget with your marketing objectives.
What you spend and where you spend it will depend on what you are trying to accomplish.
So, when you start building your marketing budget, make sure you only spend money on things that your current marketing goals require – goals set based on your audience and their journey from prospect to customer. These could include:
Display ads to promote a new product you're launching this year.
Sponsored social media posts to generate followers for your new Facebook page.
Paid search engine ads to drive traffic (and purchases) to a specific product page.
Hire bloggers to get more organic search traffic to your business website.
3.- Be careful with hidden costs.
One of the great benefits of having and maintaining a budget spreadsheet is that it helps you avoid end-of-quarter or end-of-year freakouts when you realize, “Wow… what did I spend all that on?”
In many cases, unanticipated costs can force marketers to shell out cash they weren't planning to spend. Product marketing offers a perfect example. When people allocate budget for product marketing, they tend to think in terms of product launches and promotional activities.
Which is certainly an important part. But another area of focus to remember is to set aside resources to conduct research and message testing long before the product hits the market. Having conversations with customers about a product’s pain points can be critical to shaping messaging and having a truly successful launch.
4.- Remember where your priorities are.
Marketing is full of add-ons and extras, upsells and “premium” versions. One of the best ways to evaluate what’s nice to have versus what’s absolutely necessary is to (you guessed it?) organize all your expenses.
By monitoring where your budget is being allocated and checking that spending against the results you're getting, it will be much easier to identify what should continue to get budget and what should be eliminated.
5.- Spend your marketing budget wisely.
Having a spreadsheet with all your expenses listed doesn't mean you have to fill out absolutely everything that's there and we've mentioned in this article. The idea is not to use an "always spend more" marketing approach.
Instead, the approach—especially in our turbulent times—is more about “always spending wisely.” Not all marketing spending is mandatory, but it’s ideal to be aware of all the possibilities that exist, to guide your thinking and help you not overlook any hidden expenses or costs in your marketing efforts.
6.- Get ready to measure ROI.
When you invest a certain amount of money in a certain area, you'll want to identify whether your budget helped or hurt you, in order to plan future budgets. The best way to do this is by measuring ROI, or return on investment.
If the money you invested in a particular area of marketing has resulted in higher revenue for your business, it is very likely that you will want to increase that investment for the next quarter or year. If, on the other hand, the money invested has not returned anything, then you should review your budget.