Where should your money go? A practical framework for splitting your marketing budget across channels.
Allocating a marketing budget is one of the most important decisions a growing SME makes. Spend too much on one channel and you miss opportunities elsewhere. Spread too thin and nothing gets enough budget to work properly. Here's a practical framework based on what we see working for UK service businesses.
If you're starting from scratch, put 70% of your budget into Google Search Ads. This is your highest-intent channel - people actively searching for the service you provide. The remaining 30% should go into your website and landing pages, ensuring you have proper conversion infrastructure before you start driving traffic.
Once you're generating consistent leads from Google Search, introduce Meta retargeting with 15-20% of your total budget. This captures the 95% of visitors who don't convert on their first visit. At this stage, your split might be 60% Google Search, 20% Meta Retargeting, and 20% into SEO content and website improvements.
As you mature, gradually shift budget towards SEO and organic channels. The end goal for most service businesses is a 40/30/30 split: 40% paid search, 30% paid social (retargeting and prospecting), and 30% SEO/content. This diversification protects you from algorithm changes and gives you multiple lead sources. But don't try to reach this split in year one - build sequentially.