With an economic downturn looming, it’s not surprising around 75% of CMOs report being asked to do more with less in a Gartner survey. Marketers are finding it increasingly difficult to set the right budget, optimize it and keep the leads flowing.

Managing social media and other marketing channels in this economy can be challenging. You’ll need a plan to address top budget concerns to provide clarity and control over every dollar spent. It will help prioritize vital areas, avoid overspending and adapt to unforeseen challenges.

In this blog, we’ll cover:

• How to budget for your marketing needs
• Optimizing your marketing budget: Best practices
• Marketing budget breakdown
• Sample marketing budget

How to budget for your marketing needs

To set a marketing budget, you will need to look at past records, do thorough market research and analyze your team’s needs. Let’s look at these steps in detail.

Take a look at past results

The phrase “Yesterday’s lessons, tomorrow’s innovations” holds true when setting marketing budgets during a recession. It’s all about knowing what’s working, and focusing in on activities and core channels that are delivering.

See where your dollars had the most impact in the previous year—the campaigns that brought the biggest return on ad spend (ROAS), conversion rates or lead sources. For example, if you got X number of leads from influencer marketing in the previous year, you can propose an X+10% increase in budget for the same activity this year.

Create internal benchmarks by platform and across all media channels to identify areas of investment that are not worth continuing. If you didn’t have metrics in place last year, now is the perfect time to implement them based on your company’s overall goals.

Do your research

You need to be aware of the market conditions to allocate the right marketing budget. Research how the market has changed since last year: Do you have the same competitors? What is your current brand perception? How has AI impacted the market?

Look for industry benchmarks to gain insights into what your competitors are spending on marketing. This will give you an idea of what your marketing budget should be.

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