5 min read · October 2026
How much should a growing business spend on marketing?
A plain way to set the number, without copying a percentage from someone else's business.
Start from the customer, not the percentage
Rules like 'spend 10 percent of revenue' are easy to repeat and hard to trust. They ignore your margin, your repeat rate and how fast you want to grow.
A better start is to ask what a new customer is worth to you over a year, and how much you can pay to get one and still make money.
Work backwards in three numbers
Number one: gross profit per customer over twelve months. Number two: the share of that you are willing to spend to win the customer. Number three: how many customers you want per month.
Multiply the second and third. That is a monthly figure you can defend. If it feels too small to run ads, the honest answer is often to fix the offer or the site first.
Split it, do not scatter it
Spread across six channels, a small budget teaches you nothing. Pick one or two channels, test properly, and add a third only when the first two are tracked and steady.
Keep a slice for follow-up tools and creative. Good leads wasted by slow follow-up are the most expensive waste in marketing.
Use the budget splitter
Our free Budget Splitter on the Tools page turns your monthly figure into a suggested split by goal. It is a starting point to argue with, not a rule.
Written by the Brand’s Trumpet team. General guidance, not a guarantee of any result.