Marketing Budget Calculator by Industry, Revenue, and Goals
Establishing the ideal marketing budget for your company can be challenging. Your industry, revenue, expenses, and projected growth all impact the numbers—and that’s before actually planning your marketing strategy!
Our experts at Big Leap did extensive research into the main determinants involved in budgeting for a successful digital marketing strategy and developed our marketing budget calculator as a result.
Below, we tell you all about the calculator’s features and provide a breakdown of our services and costs so you can get a clear idea of how to best plan for success.
- Marketing Budget Calculator
- The Calculator
- What industry is your company in?
- What was your business's revenue (total sales) last year?*
- How aggressive do you want to be?
- About the General Cost of Digital Marketing Services
- The Price and Value Differences of an Agency vs. In-House, Freelance, or AI
- Let’s Get to Work
- Get it Right
with a Trusted Team
Marketing Budget Calculator
The Calculator
To help our clients determine how to calculate their digital marketing budget, we looked at factors like a company’s industry, revenue, and goals. These insights led to a formula that we turned into the basis of our marketing budget calculator.
How to Calculate Your Marketing Budget
We’ve made it easy for you to establish an accurate ballpark budget, which includes a breakdown of the marketing efforts involved.
Step #1: Choose Your Industry
We’ve broken your choices down into four main categories:
- National: Software companies, B2B, media, and similar industries
- Local: Companies that center around local services, local retail, etc.
- eCommerce: Businesses that primarily sell products online
- Other: Any business that doesn’t fall into the other categories
Step #2: Enter Your Company’s Revenue
For this step, enter your total sales from the previous year. Calculations are most accurate for businesses with at least $100,000 in annual revenue.
Step #3: Assess How Aggressive You Want Your Company’s Marketing to Be
When determining how to calculate a budget for your marketing plan, you need to consider the scale and growth you’re aiming for. Our digital marketing budget calculator lets you choose between three options:
- Low: Choose this if you want to remain active but can’t afford to do everything a larger budget makes possible.
- Medium: Select “Medium” if you plan to be cautious but want to scale gradually.
- High: For companies determined to scale quickly, choose this for the most aggressive strategy.
Ready to find out what your marketing budget should be? Great! Let’s give it a try!
What industry is your company in?
What was your business's revenue (total sales) last year?*
This works best with an annual revenue of at least $100,000.
How aggressive do you want to be?
- Low - cash is tight or we don't have the bandwidth for new customers but want to keep our marketing active.
- Medium - we want to grow conservatively with a traditional marketing spend.
- High - we have big growth goals and are ready to scale.
Recommended Monthly Digital Marketing Budget
Disclaimer: These are recommendations based on industry stats but each business and industry is different. Some channels may be more important for your industry vs. the industry averages. Contact Big Leap to get a customized proposal.
The Thought Behind the Numbers
Spitting out a budget amount is great and all, but how did we come up with the calculations? Let’s just say we conducted hours of research to uncover all of the latest findings on marketing budgets and spending across revenues, industries, and channels. We were careful and methodical about using the research to build a calculator that would really be able to guide you in your decision making.
For a full account of our findings, check out the article here. It includes stats on:
- Average marketing budgets per company size
- Average marketing spend per industry
- Average marketing spend per channel/service
- Tips on creating a budget and planning for 2021
For help getting the most out of every dollar, contact us. We’d love to partner to take your company to the next level.
Once you’ve entered all of the fields, our calculator suggests budget allocations for the following:
- SEO and content marketing
- Social media
- Marketing automation
- Conversion rate optimization (CRO)
- Paid search
- Paid social
Got questions about what each of these entails and how Big Leap can help you make the most of every aspect of your budget? Get in touch!
About the General Cost of Digital Marketing Services
Since we’re on the subject, let’s look at the cost of SEO, PPC, and content marketing at Big Leap.
SEO Pricing
Search engine optimization (SEO) involves optimizing your website and its contents to maximize your visibility in search results.
To establish the right budget for each client, we assess your specific needs, pain points, and long-term goals. We customize monthly retainer packages that cost anywhere from $5,000 to $50,000 per month.
Big Leap focuses on long-term partnerships with our clients. However, for a one-time project-based job, like setting up an email campaign or creating a batch of local SEO location pages, the budget can be anywhere from $5,000 to $50,000.
PPC Pricing
Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns are the perfect complement to a successful SEO strategy. They send your ideal audience directly to your site or walk them through a series of landing pages—your sales funnel.
While your long-term SEO strategy improves your visibility in organic search results over weeks and months, your PPC campaign starts yielding results right away. We learn from every click, continuously optimizing your campaign for maximum results.
Our PPC pricing begins with a one-time setup fee of $1,500, where we set up tracking and run an audit on attributions, conversion rate optimization (CRO), and your creative assets.
We charge a $2,500 minimum retainer fee per platform or a fee based on a percentage of your ad spend (whichever is greater). Recurring monthly charges include:
- Funnel creation
- Management
- Tracking
- Monitoring
- Analytics
- Reports
- Refinement
À La Carte
Sometimes a client needs a one-time service, like designing a social media ad or a one-time setup for their PPC campaign. These services come with their own associated fees, including a minimum management fee or percentage of ad spend (whichever is greater).
Content Marketing Pricing
With content marketing, we develop a digital marketing strategy that includes optimized content like:
- Blog posts
- Infographics
- Case studies
- Videos
- Landing pages
- eBooks
- White papers
- Quizzes
- FAQs
Monthly recurring costs for your content marketing campaign can range from $3K to $60K per month, depending on your specific pain points and goals.
À La Carte
One-off prices for content like blog posts can range from $225 to $400, while an eBook could cost several thousand dollars to produce
The Price and Value Differences of an Agency vs. In-House, Freelance, or AI
Finding the perfect fit for your marketing strategy is essential. Let’s look at some benefits of partnering with an agency like Big Leap vs. in-house, freelance, and AI options.
Marketing Agency
The right marketing agency brings a wealth of resources to your long-term marketing plan. For around the same price as hiring a single marketing expert in-house, you get the value of an entire team of experts focused on a range of targeted monthly goals.
An agency balances a range of budget options to account for your resources and how aggressively you’re investing in scaling your business.
In-House
It can be a huge benefit to have an expert in your field focused solely on your internal marketing strategy year-round.
If a company can afford it, the best scenario often means having an in-house marketing expert work alongside an agency, coordinating the content, keyword strategy, and roadmap for website optimizations.
Freelancer
Freelance talent can be effective in filling in the gaps under temporary conditions. Whether saving on costs or increasing productivity for a short-term goal, freelance talent can help you accomplish specific tasks. The downside to hiring freelancers may be finding the best fit. Since freelancers come and go, there’s a chance they don’t get to a point where they fully actualize your company’s voice, strategy, or finer preferences.
AI
The whole world is talking about AI, and for good reason. Many marketing companies have learned the hard way that AI has just as many weaknesses as strengths. There’s no question AI has a place in marketing, but generated content tends to fall flat.
Where AI truly shines is in metrics, analysis, research, and automating redundant tasks. AI can help increase productivity and uncover insights into the metrics we use to optimize campaigns. It is even useful in content ideation and keyword research, freeing human talent to produce results with greater efficiency.
Let’s Get to Work
We’d love to help walk you through the details of your marketing budget and show you how our experts will help you activate proven digital marketing strategies that help your company scale. Request a quote from our team today!
Get it Right
with a Trusted Team
In the ever-changing landscape of digital marketing, sometimes you need a little guidance navigating where to put the biggest emphasis and how to achieve the results you’re after. It isn’t easy, we get that. But we’re here to help.
With 12 years of experience, a business built on trust, and an emphasis on creating lasting relationships, we’re here for you. Our team will take the time to learn more about your business, and help you design a comprehensive marketing strategy and budget. So contact us today, and let’s get started.
