Fund fewer channels properly before you add more, and keep just enough spread that if one platform changes, it won’t bury you. Every channel has a minimum it needs to produce results you can read, and a point past which more money buys much less. So work out both for each channel you’re considering, put the next dollar where it’s likely to return the most, decide which channels need to pay off now and which can take longer, and build in a way to move money as you learn. How far you spread it should follow your long-term goals and how long you’re willing to wait.
This is for owners, CEOs and marketing leaders planning next year’s marketing budget. Reviewing budgets before planning season is part of my advisory work, and the agency I run manages several of these channels, so I have an interest in where your money goes. The steps below work without either.
If you haven’t settled the total yet, start with how much a company should spend on marketing. This piece picks up from there: you have a number, and you need to split it.
1. Start with what you actually have
The size of the budget decides the shape of the plan. Two thousand dollars a month and a hundred thousand a month are different games. A small budget can usually fund one channel properly. A large one can run several at once, with room to test.
Take the essentials off the top first: tracking and reporting, the people or agency fees that run each channel, and creative production. A channel budget that leaves those out isn’t a real number.
And check whether the total can support the goal. If it can’t, change the goal, change the number, or wait.
2. Look at what’s worked before
Before you plan anything new, look at your history. Which channels brought in customers who turned out to be profitable, and which mostly generated activity: traffic, followers, form fills that went nowhere? Carry forward what produced customers. Be skeptical of a channel you keep funding because of one good deal years ago.
Read that history carefully, especially if your sales cycle is long, because the channel that gets credit often isn’t the one that created the interest. A buyer might see you on LinkedIn, search for you months later and click a branded ad. The ad gets the credit. So look at each channel’s own numbers, and also at what happened to your overall pipeline when you added or cut something.
A channel you’ve never run properly hasn’t had a fair test yet, so don’t dismiss it on reputation.
3. Find where your buyers are, and how they find you
Some channels capture demand that already exists: buyers searching for what you sell right now. Others create demand: they put you in front of buyers before they’re looking. Capture usually pays back faster. Creation is what keeps the capture channels supplied later.
Then look at where your buyers actually are. A company selling to other businesses might find LinkedIn obvious and TikTok unlikely; a consumer brand might find the reverse. But check what the competition is like in each channel and what it costs to win a customer there. A channel with less demand can still produce customers more cheaply, as long as there’s enough volume and the customers are worth having. And decide how head-on you want to be with competitors who already dominate a channel.
4. Work out each channel’s floor and ceiling
The floor is the least a channel needs to produce results you can learn from. You can’t take $10,000, split it evenly across ten channels and expect any of them to run. If your clicks cost $100 each, $1,000 a month buys ten clicks, which tells you almost nothing. The floor varies by industry, location and competition. It can come from your own history, the ad platforms’ estimates of what clicks cost, market research or someone who knows your space. In a competitive national market, for example, a small monthly SEO budget may never get far enough to matter, and the money would do more in paid search.
The ceiling is the point past which more money buys much less. Paid search, for instance, can only show your ads to as many people as are searching; past a point, extra spend buys pricier clicks from less likely buyers. The ad platforms’ own planning tools can help estimate this, and your account history will show it as rising cost per result.
With both in hand, fund your strongest channel to a level between its floor and its ceiling, then ask where the next dollar is likely to return the most. Never fund a channel below its floor just to have it.
5. Decide which channels need to pay off now, and which can take longer
Not every channel should be judged on the same timeline. Paid search can bring traffic within weeks, though turning that into customers can take months when the sale is complex. Search engine optimization, content and brand work take longer still. Decide up front which channels have to perform this quarter and which you’re willing to wait for, and set each one’s goals and review points accordingly. Judging everything on next month’s leads will starve the slower channels before they’ve had a chance.
Look for channels that help each other. If you run paid search, is your organic presence making it work better? Is your content giving your sales team something to send?
The budget doesn’t have to be the same every month, either. Seasonal demand, events and tests can justify spending more in some months than others.
A worked example
Say you have $20,000 a month. Sixteen thousand goes to Google Ads, between management fees and ad spend, because it’s the channel producing customers now. That leaves $2,000 for social and $2,000 for organic search, and neither amount clears its floor.
Where should the $4,000 go?
- If Google Ads still has profitable room to grow, meaning more spend would still buy good leads at a cost you’re happy with, put the $4,000 there. Adding a channel can wait.
- If Google Ads is near its ceiling, and extra spend would mostly buy pricier clicks, put the whole $4,000 into one other channel rather than splitting it. I’d usually pick organic search if your buyers search for what you sell, because it builds something you own more of: your own pages and your own visibility, which don’t disappear the day you stop paying. Commit to it for a set period, say a year, and check every quarter whether it’s moving: rankings for the searches that matter, organic visits from the right companies, and eventually leads.
- Pick social instead if your buyers are clearly active there, you can produce content for it consistently, and your history shows it reaching the right people.
Owning more of it doesn’t make organic safe. One company we spoke with leaned toward organic after a social platform’s algorithm change hurt its paid results, then watched organic traffic fall too as AI answers took over more of the search results page. That’s why the second channel exists: to make it less likely that everything fails at once.
Keep enough spread to survive a platform change
If your entire operation depends on one channel, what happens if that platform changes overnight? It can, and it does. You need some redundancy, a bit like balancing an investment portfolio, but only with money you can afford to give a real chance. A second channel funded below its floor costs money without protecting you.
Real redundancy means the channels don’t share the same weak point. LinkedIn ads and LinkedIn posts both depend on LinkedIn. Paid and organic search both depend on people searching. A channel built on a different source of demand, such as referrals, email to your own list or direct relationships, can protect you more than another platform would.
The next dollar may not belong in a channel
The next dollar doesn’t have to go to a channel. If your website converts poorly, improving it may do more than buying traffic from a second platform. If you can’t tell which channels produce customers, fixing tracking comes first. If leads arrive and stall, the money may belong in sales follow-up. Before adding a channel, ask what’s limiting the results of the ones you have.
Build in a way to move money
Once the budget is set, don’t leave it alone for a year. Review it every quarter. Give yourself the flexibility to shift money from a channel that’s stalled to one that’s working, and ask whoever runs each channel to show why their budget shouldn’t move to something performing better.
Moving money needs a fair basis. Compare channels on cost per qualified opportunity or customer over a period that suits each one, rather than on clicks or traffic. Allow for the channels that create demand without getting the credit. And don’t pull a slow channel just because it’s slow, if it’s on track for the timeline you agreed.
Common questions
Is it better to focus on one channel or spread the budget?
Focus first. Spread only as far as you can fund each channel above its floor, and grow your main channel until it nears its ceiling. Then add a second channel that doesn’t share its weak point, so a single platform change can’t take you down.
How often should I reallocate my marketing budget?
Review quarterly, and move money when a channel has clearly stalled or another has room to grow. Give slower channels the time you agreed at the start before you judge them.
What if our sales cycle is long?
Judge channels on earlier signals you agree on in advance, such as qualified opportunities created, and check them against closed deals as they come in. Don’t cut a channel for having no closed deals before your sales cycle has had time to produce any.
What percentage of the budget should go to each channel?
There’s no reliable standard split, because floors, ceilings, costs and buyer behavior vary so much by market. Work from those and your own history instead of a benchmark.
If you’d like a second opinion on next year’s split before you commit it, that’s what my marketing consulting is for. You can start a conversation on Work With Me.
