Marketing budgets can be slippery. One minute you’re feeling good about your well-organized spreadsheet, and the next, you’re wondering how a “quick paid search campaign” ate half your budget.
We’ve seen it happen—more than once.
To help B2B companies avoid these common money traps, here are seven marketing budgeting mistakes we’ve seen (or made ourselves) and how to dodge them.
1. Skipping Strategy and Jumping to Tactics
Once, a client came to us after spending thousands on PR campaigns with zero results. Why?
They didn’t have a clear strategy. (They also hadn’t optimized their website first.)
Throwing money at campaigns without a game plan is like setting sail without a map—you’ll burn cash fast and still be lost. Build your budget around a clear marketing plan tied to business goals, and every dollar will work harder.
At Heights, when we build a marketing budget for our clients, we always consider the % of spend going to different tactics and ensure it is aligned with the goals and needs of the organization.
“Is spending XX% of your budget on ads a good idea?” It depends on your goals…
2. Ignoring the Power of Data
We love a good vibe as much as the next person. But launching campaigns or allocating money to tactics that just “feel right” is a rookie move.
Data is your friend.
Get comfortable digging into analytics and using them to guide your budget decisions, so you’re not playing marketing roulette.
Start with understanding the data – your sales data, website analytics, email marketing analytics – and creating your plan and budget based on the top opportunities you see. At Heights, we build marketing roadmaps for our clients starting with data inputs like these. If you’re doing this in-house, start with these 3 data source.
Side note – Google Analytics (aka GA4), can be a beast. Sure, it has all the data on how your website is performing, but do you know how to get to the good stuff? And can you make actionable plans from what you’re seeing? Sometimes having a marketing advisor is helpful in these instances where you’re trying to find the diamond in the rough on your website data and decide where to focus.
3. Underfunding Brand Awareness
Brand awareness isn’t fluffy—it builds trust and keeps you top of mind.
The “Rule of 7” in marketing says that a person needs to see and interact with a brand around 7 times before they really start to take action.
Some studies say that as many as 20 touchpoints are necessary.
Even if your company is sales-driven and not marketing-dependent, as many of our clients are – you still need to invest in brand awareness so that when people are engaging in a sales conversation they have already heard of you several times. Your sales conversations will be all the more effective if you are already known and perceived favorably.
Allocate part of your budget to thought leadership content, social media, or PR before you become “that company…what’s their name again?”
4. Forgetting About Customer Retention
We’ve seen B2B firms throw every penny at new client acquisition, ignoring the goldmine of existing customers.
Your greatest ROI on your marketing dollars is with your existing customers.
How much?
FUN FACT: On average, acquiring a new customer costs five times more than keeping an old one. Budget for customer retention with loyalty programs, personalized email campaigns, and proactive customer support.
When we’re building marketing budgets for our clients, we offset the expense of brand awareness campaigns (which can often get a bit more costly) with customer retention and upgrade campaigns to increase ROI. This should be your focus too.
5. Neglecting a Contingency Fund
True story: A last-minute industry event sponsorship opened up for one of our clients that was perfect for their niche. Unfortunately, they’d already spent every cent of their marketing budget. Should they stick to their budget and miss out? Or go over budget?
Fortunately, we built some flexibility into budgets and we were able to re-allocate and find additional funds.
But as a general rule, we advise keeping around 10% of your budget in a contingency fund—for golden opportunities and inevitable “surprises.”
6. Relying Too Heavily on One Channel
We once watched a competitor blow their entire budget on LinkedIn ads—just LinkedIn ads.
When platform costs spiked, their leads vanished.
Lesson: Diversify. Spread your budget across email marketing, paid search, content marketing, and social media.
No platform should hold your entire strategy hostage.
7. Failing to Reassess and Reallocate
Budgets aren’t “set it and forget it”—we review budgets monthly, reallocating funds toward what’s working and cutting the rest.
We do quarterly planning and monthly momentum calls with our clients to ensure we can nimbly apply the budget to whatever is most important to their business priorities.
One client is trying to increase their brand awareness and pipeline deals in Houston, so we’re planning some events there one quarter.
The next quarter, they want to launch a gateway service to do trainings in an area of expertise. We’re helping them reassess how this new plan works together with their goals for Houston. Where’s the overlap? What has to give?
Continuous tweaking keeps your budget on track to ensure your marketing hits your goals.
Final Thoughts
Marketing budgeting doesn’t have to be something you dread. It should empower your leadership team to have better conversations about what you want to do, what’s worth investing in, and what’s just a nice idea.
Avoid these seven common mistakes, and you’ll stretch your dollars further, boost ROI, and keep your B2B marketing efforts moving forward.
After all, a well-planned budget isn’t just smart—it’s your best marketing investment.
The post 7 Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make With Your Marketing Budget first appeared on HEIGHTS STRATEGIC MARKETING.