Free download

Plan your marketing budget for the year, in one sheet.

Enter what your business brought in over the last 12 months, the month you are starting, and your tier. The template turns it into a monthly budget, funds your foundation (website, SEO, and ads) first, checks your split, and gives you four quarterly check-ins to see what is working. Every cell you fill in is marked in blue, and each step tells you exactly what goes there.

Free. Tell us where to send it and the link lands in your inbox.

A Google Sheet you copy into your own account, or an Excel file. Your choice in the email.

What's inside

Three parts. One afternoon to fill in.

  1. 1

    Start here

    Your revenue over the last 12 months (or this year so far, and it does the math), the month you are starting, and your tier: floor (5%), standard (7.5%), growth (12.5%), or your own percentage. It works out your budget by the year, the quarter, and the month.

  2. 2

    The yearly plan

    Pick each channel from a dropdown of more than 50 ad platforms and marketing channels, then type its monthly amount. The foundation (your website, SEO, and ads) sits at the top so it gets funded first. Each line is tagged proven, promising, or test, and the sheet checks your 70/20/10 split and tells you what is left to allocate.

  3. 3

    Four quarterly check-ins

    Planned against actual spend, leads, booked jobs, and cost per lead for each channel, worked out for you. A decision column for each line: keep, stop, start, or shift.

How to use it

Set it once a year. Check it every quarter.

  1. Open the email and click Make my copy in Google Sheets, or grab the Excel file.
  2. On Start here, type your revenue over the last 12 months, pick the month you are starting, and pick your tier.
  3. On Yearly plan, pick a channel in each blue row and type the monthly amount, foundation first, until "left to allocate" reaches zero.
  4. At the end of each quarter, fill in the blue columns on that quarter's tab and make the call on every line: keep, stop, start, or shift.

Not sure what tier to pick, or what a channel should cost? The marketing budget guide walks through the tiers and the plan, and the digital marketing cost guide itemizes what each service costs.

Keep going

Not sure where your money should go first?

The $97 Growth Audit grades your whole business in plain English and tells you what to fix first, including what not to buy. Or call us and ask. We answer fast.

Get the $97 Growth AuditCall 725-425-MY-AI

How we built these numbers

The template uses the same tiers as our budget guide: the U.S. Small Business Administration's 7 to 8% of revenue for businesses under $5 million, a 5% floor, and 10 to 15% for growth. The 70/20/10 check is a common rule of thumb, not a formula.