How do you budget for digital marketing at different customer journey stages?

I would outline three key checks to make in order to figure out the best marketing strategy and spend: 1. Balance between aquisition and retention - Considering that acquiring new customers can often be more expensive than retaining existing ones, it becomes essential for marketing expenditure and expansion efforts to align with predefined objectives 2. Split between awareness and lead gen - Marketing spend can vary depending on the maturity of your organization 3. Think of your persona profile - It's crucial to invest time in comprehending your target audience's preferences, their online presence, their subscriptions, and their content preferences. This understanding will guide your budget allocation effectively.

To effectively allocate your digital marketing budget, consider the different stages of your customer's journey. Focus on social media and display ads for the Awareness stage, use search engine marketing and retargeting for the Consideration stage, use email marketing and PPC for the Conversion stage, and invest in engagement tools for Retention. Analyze customer data to optimize ROI at each stage.

Traditional metrics like impressions and reach don't necessarily reflect awareness campaign success. Just because an ad is seen doesn't mean it's relevant or engaging for the viewer. Even for awareness goals, campaigns should be steered towards conversion metrics that demonstrate engagement. This doesn't only mean leads or purchases but also micro-conversions like site visit duration, pages viewed, or scroll depth. These indicators truly reflect user interest in your offerings.

As a performance marketing specialist, once I understand the success metrics, I make sure to look at the last 12 months and all-time performance to see and gauge the benchmarks. Using this data, I then split the available budget using the 10/20/70split between; 10% Awareness (TOF) 20% Consideration (MOF) 70% Conversion (BOF) This is a standard funnel — for a business that requires maximum ROI, I would argue to keep it the same, there is no point in having an expensive, unengaged audience in your bottom of funnel.

Awareness is purely about positioning a piece of creative that has been designed specifically to stop your target audience in their tracks. Measurements therefore are engagement based, and not ROAS. The majority of budget should be spent at this crucial stage.

As a digital marketing consultant, I emphasize that the consideration stage is pivotal. Here, budget allocation should be strategic. Concentrate on nurturing leads and convincing them to choose your solution over competitors'. Employ channels like email marketing, webinars, case studies, testimonials, or landing pages to demonstrate your value proposition and address pain points. Vital metrics to monitor include leads, conversions, click-through rates, and cost per lead. This stage is where prospects evolve into customers, so optimizing your budget allocation is critical for success.

This is all about telling your story. Find your brands why and get this across to the people you've already made aware of your brands existence, as part of the above awareness stage.

Goal: Nurture Leads and Provide Valuable Information 1- Email Marketing (20-25%): Develop targeted campaigns to guide leads through the sales funnel. 2- Retargeting Ads (15-20%): Re-engage visitors who have shown interest with retargeting campaigns. 3- Webinars and Online Events (10-15%): Host events to showcase your expertise and build trust. 4- Case Studies and Testimonials (5-10%): Use success stories to demonstrate your product's value.

At the consideration stage, potential customers are weighing their options and comparing your brand with others. Your goal is to educate and influence them to choose your brand. 1. Engage with potential customers, build trust, and drive conversions. 2. I usually do Budget Allocation the following way: Email Marketing: 20-30% Retargeting Ads (Google Ads, Facebook Ads): 20-30% Social Media Ads (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter): 15-25% Content Marketing (lead magnets, webinars): 10-20% Customer Referral Programs: 5-10%

If you are a new brand, your consideration budget can be a bit weak in the beginning as you are still shaping your identity. If you already passed the awareness stage, then it's time to boost consideration. Use the audience lists you created through the awareness stage and make sure you retarget the engaged ones. Continuation is key here.

In the decision stage, my perspective as a digital marketing consultant underscores the importance of a strategic budget allocation. It's the point where prospects become customers, and it's critical for closing deals and building loyalty. Allocate budget to channels like remarketing, chatbots, coupons, free trials, or follow-up emails to motivate and incentivize customers to choose your product or service and stay with you. Keep a close eye on key metrics like sales, revenue, cost per acquisition, and customer lifetime value to measure the success of your efforts. This stage is where long-term relationships are forged, making budget optimization essential for lasting success.

In this critical phase, your budget should prioritize conversion-driven activities. Allocate resources to paid search campaigns, especially through platforms like Google Ads. Leveraging the features in DV360, you can implement programmatic advertising to reach specific audiences with tailored messages. ABM becomes even more important as you aim to close deals with key accounts. Invest in content that addresses objections and concerns, such as case studies and reviews. For the conversion stage, it's essential to allocate the budget toward metrics directly tied to conversions. This includes lead generation metrics, such as form submissions, sign-ups, or demo requests. Additionally, track metrics related to actual purchases, if applicable.

Conversion Conversations. Make them easy and empowering. I haven't 'sold' anything in 20+ years, though I'm often aligned to a sales motion. The purchase is a journey of choice. Strategic investment at this stage will have a heavy influence on your ability to convince the consumer at the next media intersection, the bottom of the funnel. Consumers often hold basket orders for unknown periods so marketers go to Paid Search/Social to drive this action, but Influencers are a major component of the lifestyle brand's media mix. Short-form Video, HIU Display, email automation & SMS are inexpensive and direct but require effort, and MarTech tools, don't leave them out of your plan.

As challenging as it might sound on the surface, I think the real key to most accurately determining budget at each stage is to first determine the value of a potential customer at each of the stages in your specific sales funnel. It might take some work, but there should be data available at each stage to begin to identify those values. If not, then what metrics would be used to justify any assigned budget or to measure success at any given stage? If these things haven’t been identified, then you must be comfortable with some level of “spray and pray” strategy.

Goal: Convert Leads into Customers 1- Promotional Offers (20-25%): Incentivize purchases with special deals and discounts. 2- Product Demos and Free Trials (10-15%): Provide hands-on experiences to convince prospects. 3- Conversion Rate Optimization (15-20%): Enhance your website and landing pages to improve conversion rates. 4- Customer Reviews and Referrals (5-10%): Encourage reviews and referrals to boost credibility.

It is crucial to ensure the highest quality UX possible. Check heatmap tools, Analytics drop-off rate in pages, and also attribution. Find which channel works for you and double up its budget. We have many channels, some more expensive, some less, but what is important for the business in the end is the CPA of the client who bought. Don't stick to CPM metrics at this stage, try to go deeper in the MQL to SQL cycle.

At this stage, many tend to overlook the need to adjust the budget especially when running campaigns for A/B Testing. A common oversight includes comparing Apple To Oranges since you cannot benchmark against your previous ads performances as it was done with a different budget allocation and very controlled variables. Another common mistake that new practitioners would make is to also "test too many things" within a fixed budget and the result is incomprehensible even to a trained eye. Document all your tests, variables, budget and results so that you are clear as to what has been tested and what has not. Organization is key even when you are working solo.

you want to make sure that your digital marketing efforts are paying off and delivering the best possible results. That's why you need to analyze and improve your performance and ROI at the optimization stage. This stage involves testing and tweaking your campaigns, channels, and strategies to find out what works and what doesn't, and to optimize your outcomes and lower your costs. To do this, you can use tools such as Google Analytics, A/B testing, heat maps, or surveys to measure and monitor your key performance indicators and audience behavior. You can use Google Analytics to track how many visitors come to your website, how long they stay, and what actions they take.

In my opinion, in the optimization stage, directing budget towards analyzing and enhancing digital marketing performance is essential, with a focus on tools like Google Analytics and A/B testing. Ensuring a high-quality user experience and delving into MQL to SQL cycles are critical aspects of this phase. Key considerations for optimization include adjusting budgets based on effective A/B testing, avoiding the pitfall of "testing too many things," and maintaining organizational rigor in documenting tests and results.

While data is a marketer's best friend, qualitative feedback shouldn't be overlooked. Engaging in conversations with customers can offer insights that quantitative metrics can't. Utilising this feedback can aid in refining your strategies across all stages of the customer journey.

Business metrics like CLV (Customer Lifetime Value) or even CBV (Customer Brand Value) and CRV (Customer Referral value) are critical to your digital marketing budget as they determine your Cost of Customer Acquisition (CAC). Then come the ROI metrics across the campaign. It also helps to understand the ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) per channel for your specific business - to strategically apportion budgets. And do not forget to budget for your 'Dark Social' channels. This is your non-attributable traffic from Digital Social Media (private social sharing, content impressions, podcast listeners, etc.)

The first step is to understand where you are in the marketing funnel in terms of seniority, then: Set Clear Goals: Define specific and measurable objectives for your campaigns to guide budget allocation. Analyze Past Performance: Assess the ROI of previous campaigns to identify successful channels and strategies. Market Research: Understand your audience and industry trends to align budget allocation with audience behavior. Allocate by Channel: Divide your budget among various marketing channels based on their relevance to your goals. Testing and Optimization: Reserve a portion of your budget for testing and optimizing strategies to maximize efficiency and results.

A valuable guiding principle is to invest more where it matters most. This means allocating a larger share of your budget to the stages that have the most significant impact on your bottom line and the lowest cost per desired action. Let your objectives steer your budget allocation. For instance, if your primary goal is lead generation, it's wise to allocate more resources to the consideration stage, where you can nurture and convert those leads into customers. Conversely, if boosting customer retention is your aim, focusing on the decision stage may be more prudent, with investments in loyalty programs or post-purchase engagement strategies.

Imagine you're planning a big party, and you have different parts to make it awesome. Some parts, like the music or games, are super important, and some, like the decorations, are not as crucial. It's the same with marketing! You decide how much to spend on each part of telling people about your cool stuff based on what's most important for your business. If you really want more people to know about you, you might spend more on that part. But if you want more people to actually buy from you, then you'd spend more on that part instead. It's like deciding which parts of the party will make everyone the happiest and adjusting things as you go along to make sure everyone has a great time!

It depends on your business roadmap and how you want to position yourself toward your business goals in the sales funnel. Two key things to consider for any digital-focused business APP or Web 1. Go for multi channels, avoid putting all your budget into a single platform without historical performance data. Like in real life, putting all eggs in one basket is too risky... 2. Beware of cannibalization in paid media; measure incremental growth between organic and paid. Mainly consider this in optimizing the lower funnel events... Experiment/Learn: Conduct realistic budget not small, scale tests across funnel stages before burning cash. This approach identifies what works, allowing budget adjustments based on your KPI

Digital marketing is a dynamic field with diverse strategies for online promotion. Key advice includes understanding your audience, setting clear goals, choosing the right platforms, creating high-quality content, optimizing for search engines (SEO), using paid advertising wisely, engaging in email marketing, active social media involvement, data analytics, mobile optimization, testing and compliance with privacy regulations. Staying informed about industry trends is essential, and successful digital marketing often involves a tailored combination of strategies based on your objectives and target audience. Adaptation and refinement are crucial as you gather data and insights.

Localisation can significantly enhance your digital marketing strategies. If you're targeting different regions, understanding and catering to local nuances, behaviours, and preferences can make your campaigns more effective. For instance, a campaign that works well in Auckland might need tweaks when rolled out in Wellington. Always stay attuned to the cultural and regional nuances of your target audience.

- Allocate a significant portion of the budget to stages where prospects are closest to conversion. This ensures you maximize ROI when potential customers are most engaged. - Be prepared to adjust budgets based on performance data. If one stage is consistently underperforming, redistribute funds to more successful stages for a well-optimized strategy.

The AIDA-Model is wrong as a customer journey but helpful as a funnel. See your funnel as a pipeline and analyse where it leaks the most. Compare your leaks to the leaks of your competitors. Correct for brand size. Then spend to fix the most severe leaks. Easy.

??Understanding and allocating resources at every customer touchpoint ensures optimal ROI. Budget Distribution Guidelines: ?Awareness: Invest in broad-reach channels like display ads and social media campaigns. ?Consideration: Allocate funds to content marketing, retargeting, and email campaigns to nurture potential leads. ?Decision: Focus on reviews, testimonials, and PPC ads to persuade and convert. ?Retention: Dedicate budget for loyalty programs, email marketing, and personalized offers. Strategically budgeting across the journey stages fosters seamless customer progression and maximizes conversions.