The two most common mistakes with a marketing budget: the first is not planning it at all (“we’ll run ads when we need to”), the second is simply copying last year’s amount. In both cases the budget is not tied to a business goal.
1. Goal first, money second
Start with your sales goal, not with an amount. A simple chain:
- How many sales do you need in 2027 (in UZS or in clients)?
- How much does one client bring on average (average order value × repeat purchases per year)?
- How much does one client cost you now (ad spend over the last 3–6 months ÷ clients who came)?
With these three numbers, the budget calculates itself: number of clients needed × cost per client. If you don’t have the third number, your first task for 2027 is to start measuring it.
A budget without a cost per client is a guess. You can start the year with a guess, but after the first quarter you need to replace it with a real number.
2. What percentage of revenue?
There is no universal number, but there are guidelines:
- Growing business (new market, new branch, expanding the client base): 10–15% of revenue.
- Stable business (keeping clients, slow growth): 5–8%.
- New business (first year): a percentage doesn’t work because there is no revenue yet. Set a separate test budget for the first 3 months.
This is only a starting point. What matters is the calculation from section one. If it comes to 20% and that brings profit, 20% is right. If 3% is enough, there is no need to spend 10%.
3. What the budget is made of
Many people think “marketing budget” means only ad money. In fact, it has three parts:
- Ad budget: money that goes to Meta, Google, Telegram ADS and bloggers. The most visible part.
- Production: content, video, design, website, landing page. This part decides what the ads will show.
- Management: a team or an agency, analytics, CRM.
A typical split: ads 50–60%, production 25–30%, management 15–20%. If production gets less than 10%, your ads run on old, weak creatives. The money goes, the results don’t come.
4. Which channels
Choose channels based on where your clients actually come from, not because “everyone does it”. For many industries in Uzbekistan, this order works:
- Instagram + paid ads: the main channel for B2C and many B2B companies. Targeted ads bring fast results, and SMM turns the person who came from an ad into a client.
- Telegram: channel, bot and Telegram ADS. For repeat sales and staying in touch with current clients.
- YouTube: a trust channel for expensive products and complex services. Results are slow, but they last.
- Website and Google: so people find you at the moment they search. A website is built once and works for years.
Set aside 10–15% of the budget to test a new channel and give the rest to proven channels. Launching every channel at once is the fastest way to lose money.
5. How to manage the budget during the year
A budget is not a document you approve once and leave untouched until December. A working routine:
- Monthly split based on seasonality: which months are strong in your industry and which are slow. The ad budget changes the same way.
- Quarterly review: cost per client, results by channel, which creatives worked. Money moves from channels that don’t work to channels that do.
- 10% reserve: for an unexpected opportunity (scaling an ad that performs well) or for a problem.
6. What not to cut first
When a hard month comes, many businesses stop content and ads first. This is the most expensive mistake: restarting stopped ads takes 1–2 months and extra money, and an Instagram page “dies” in 2–3 months.
If you have to cut, do it in this order: first the test channels, then production volume (less content, but better quality), and only last the main ad channel.
Summary: a 30-minute plan
You don’t need a long document for your budget. One table is enough: goal (number of clients), cost per client, channels and their shares, monthly split, reserve. Build it at the start of 2027 and update it every quarter, and marketing turns from an “expense” into an “investment”.
If you are unsure how to calculate your cost per client or choose channels, we’ll go through your current numbers together in a free consultation.