Free Template

Marketing Budget Template

Plan marketing spend across channels — paid acquisition, content, events, and brand — with built-in customer acquisition cost (CAC) calculations and campaign ROI tracking. Designed for marketing leaders who need to justify every pound of spend.

What's included

Everything in this template

  • Channel-level budget allocation (paid, organic, events, brand)
  • Campaign-level spend and ROI tracking
  • Customer acquisition cost (CAC) calculations
  • Lead-to-customer conversion funnel
  • Monthly phasing with seasonal adjustments
  • Year-over-year comparison columns

Template preview

See the structure

fx=Total_Spend / New_Customers
Channel
Budget
Leads
CAC
Paid Search
£45k
320
£141
Content/SEO
£18k
280
£64
Events
£30k
95
£316
Social Ads
£22k
180
£122
Total
£115k
875
£131

Step by step

How to use this template

1

Define your marketing channels

List every channel you plan to invest in — paid search, social ads, content marketing, events, partnerships, and brand campaigns.

2

Allocate budget by channel and quarter

Distribute your total marketing budget across channels. Use historical data to weight spend towards the highest-performing channels.

3

Set lead and conversion targets

For each channel, enter expected leads, conversion rate, and average deal size. The template calculates CAC and channel ROI.

4

Track actual performance monthly

Update spend, leads, and conversions each month. Compare actual CAC to target and reallocate budget to the best-performing channels.

5

Report ROI to leadership

Use the summary dashboard to present channel performance, CAC trends, and budget utilisation to the leadership team.

Watch out

Common mistakes to avoid

Allocating budget equally across channels instead of weighting by historical performance

Measuring leads without tracking conversion to paying customers

Ignoring organic channels (SEO, content) because they take longer to show results

Not accounting for agency fees and creative production costs in channel budgets

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FAQ

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