Why You Need To Look Towards The Details In Your Marketing Budget


Marketing budgets are not all created equal. Some budgets allow companies to take big risks while others are bootstrapping every effort. However, each should be accountable in tracking the results of each dollar spent.

This isn’t a new idea. Yet many businesses are still struggling to connect marketing efforts to well, anything. Can you see the short and long term results of your marketing dollars?

If you answered no, I am here to tell you every marketing effort you put money into has a way to track and should be accountable. Every effort, no exceptions.

So how do you hold your marketing accountable?

There are the broad metrics like

  • Return on marketing investment (ROMI)
  • Revenue per customer
  • Marketing expenditure vs. budget
  • Marketing expenditure as a percentage of revenue
  • Brand awareness
  • Market share
  • Website traffic
  • Number of new customers.

These metrics are great and show a holistic view of marketing. What they lack though is the direct correlation to each dollar spent.

If you spent money on a blog post, did it gain traction, get shared, did people read the whole thing, what are the comments like, was there a call-to-action, was it successful?

If you did an email campaign what were your open and click through rates? Did you have a landing page, what was it conversion rate?

Are you booking meetings at a conference? How many meetings did you get, did they show, did they convert to customers or partners?

The smaller more granular details are the ones that tell the story. It’s there you see if your dollars were well spent, or if you need to redirect your efforts.

Starts treating your marketing department like your sales department. Set KPIs and goals. Allocate your budget to the resources that perform, but don’t be afraid to test new ideas.

Each marketing channel has a unique set of ways to measure. Don’t discriminate on one just because you aren’t seeing an increase in sales. You need to look towards the details to see the bigger picture.