Template · Budget Planner
Most budgets are last year’s budget with inflation. That’s not planning.
A structure for allocating marketing spend by the outcome it’s meant to buy — and protecting the brand and experiment lines that always get raided first.
The default budget process is anchoring on last year and negotiating at the margins. This structure starts from outcomes and forces an explicit split between the spend that compounds (brand), the spend that converts (performance), and the spend that finds the future (experiments).
The first line cut in a hard quarter is usually the one building next year.
Brand (the compounding line)
The spend that makes everything else cheaper over time. Protect it with a floor — because it’s the easiest to cut and the most expensive to lose. Set the percentage deliberately, not residually.
Performance (the converting line)
The spend that harvests existing demand. Scale it to the demand that exists, not beyond — pouring money into a thin top just raises your cost per outcome.
Experiments (the finding line)
A ring-fenced slice — often 10–15% — for channels and ideas you don’t yet trust. Without it, you optimise yourself into a corner. With it, you find next year’s main line.
Always-on versus campaign
Split each of the above into the baseline that runs continuously and the bursts tied to moments. Confusing the two is how continuity quietly dies to fund a launch.
Set the brand and experiment percentages first and treat them as floors, not variables. Everything else flexes; those two are what discipline actually protects.
Common questions
How should you allocate a marketing budget?
By expected outcome, with explicit floors for brand (the compounding line) and experiments (the finding line), and performance scaled to real demand rather than ambition.
What percentage of budget should go to brand?
There’s no universal number, but it should be a deliberate floor you defend — not the residual left after performance takes what it wants.
Pair with the marketing plan template · the argument: perception is a growth lever.