The steps you’ve taken to look at past performance

One of the most critical initial steps in figuring out a digital marketing budget is to solidify clear, concrete goals. You don’t want to take a “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” approach since that will waste both time and money.

Instead, what you should be aiming to do is decide where you want to see your results. That may mean a single result, or it may mean a primary goal with secondary and tertiary objectives.

However, in every case, you must know what you are trying to achieve, like these aims:

• Boost brand awareness
• Create more brand loyalty
• Generate more high-quality leads
• Increase revenue
• Boost conversion rates

These are all very different goals, with different approaches, so which ones you choose will have an impact on your digital plan, and how you should be budgeting.

AI tools to help set clear budget goals

• Funnel.io: Aggregates marketing data to inform goal-setting and performance tracking.
• Klipfolio: Helps create dashboards to align goals with KPIs and monitor progress.
• Databox: Automates goal tracking and provides insights on how to adjust strategies to meet objectives.

Once you have a goal and an idea of what’s been working and what hasn’t, you can start breaking down your budget based on priorities and success.

The key word here is “success,” not cost.  and calculate metrics can help you understand what has worked across your paid, earned, and owned media.

For example, social media marketing may not actually cost you anything if you rely on organic posts and traffic.

However, if the analysis of your past digital marketing efforts shows that Instagram is effective in boosting brand awareness, you may want to assign some budget to social media to try paid advertising or influencer marketing.

After all, if Instagram performs for you without a plan or many posts, consider how much more effective it could be with a social media manager in place, or the right social media tools and software to fully take advantage of it?

A survey by Neil Patel Digital looked at how marketers are spending budgets in 2025 for social ads across networks. Interestingly, YouTube and X seem to be getting the highest budget increase at 49% and 55% compared to Facebook who may only see a 14% increase.

Don’t just rely on one channel even if you have a small budget, look at other areas that you may be underutilizing but which could give you wins.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a tactic that can go a long way to getting your content and brand seen. Are there tools you could invest in to boost your SEO or should you subscribe to a platform to optimize keyword research?

Go where the activity is and shift the budget away to something that gets better results.

AI tools to help allocate budget

• Singular: Tracks cross-channel ROI and automates budget allocation based on performance.
• Madgicx: Analyzes ad campaign performance and reallocates budget dynamically.
• Allocadia: Specializes in marketing budget planning and aligning spend with goals.

Now that you have a much better idea shop of what your goals are, and what tactics and channels you want to use to achieve them, it’s time to set your budget for the specific resources you’ll be needing.

Digital marketing is, of course, about the combination of two distinct resources: tools/software and resources. You need to start looking at how your own budget will accommodate these.

For example, look at your paid advertising. Do you want to invest in tried and tested methods such as pay-per-click advertising? After all, 63% of people have clicked on a Google ad, according to Hubspot’s Annual State of Marketing Report. Or is paid social something you want to try given the success of your organic social campaigns?

Think about the resources you have to manage paid campaigns. Do you want a dedicated team member for each or do you want to assign one member to handle all paid marketing? If it’s just one, how much time should that individual spend on it and what tools do they need?

Other areas to think about that will require budget are:

• Content: Creation and strategy
• Creative: Freelance and in-house
• Social media: Organic and paid
• Email marketing: Platform and list management
• Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) and user experience (UX): Website structure, running costs and tools
• Traditional advertising: Print, TV, or radio
• PR or Events: Venue, running costs and promotion
• Technology and tools licences: Analytics, design, video, webinars, podcasts, AI tools
• Community management: Managing groups and communities on social and other channels and outreach

AI tools to help you break down requirements

• Asana (with AI features): Helps organize and allocate resources across marketing projects.
• Monday.com: Offers AI-driven workload management to optimize team efforts.
• Smartsheet: Manages resources, costs, and timelines for marketing campaigns.

Marketers always need content to attract, influence and convert customers, so content ideation and generation is essential (guided by a solid content marketing plan).

But the type of content you can create  do seat belts actually prevent injuries and deaths? varies wildly depending on your business, needs, audience, and goals.

If your company provides services then some content types may be more suitable than others. For example, in-depth case studies, whitepapers, and long-form blogs can help inform your audience and build authority in your industry. This may require you to budget to hire experts or implement a guest blogging strategy to get the right content.

Businesses that are product-based might benefit more from video content, especially for social media. That, of course, is an entirely different skill set, despite the importance of the content itself. So, your budget may need to account for recording equipment, editing equipment, presenters or writers depending on your ability to provide these yourself, and other factors. Infographics and listicle-type blogs are also useful in this instance along with a wealth of blogs that can work at each stage of the sales funnel.

You also need to keep AI in mind as things is changing how people find content on search engines and social media. Here’s a blog that covers AI overviews, a new detilaed search way for people to find information on Google.

Remember just because you’re a service-based company doesn’t mean you can’t use short-form video or TikTok. Here’s a great video from Shopify aimed at its users in anticipation of Black Friday.

AI tools to help with content creation

• Claude, ChatGPT, Jasper, and Gemini: Excellent AI tools for copywriting and content development
• Canva’s AI features: Simplifies the creation of visuals and graphics for marketing
• Descript: Streamlines video and audio production, including editing and transcription

Another important consideration for your budget cell phone number is to look at the platforms you choose to use. This is highly dependent on your business and the market that you cater to.

When allocating a budget for platforms, you need to ensure a well-rounded and effective strategy which could include the following: