Marketing Budgeting for Growth: How to Prioritize When Resources Are Tight

A startup CEO once told me, “We need to grow pipeline, but we also need to cut spend by 30%. What can you do?”

Classic.

When budgets get tight, the first instinct is to chop everything that isn’t producing magic right this second. But the trick isn’t just cutting. It’s knowing what to protect, what to double down on, and what to quietly stop doing without anyone noticing.

Here’s how I think about budgeting when you need to grow but spend less. Which, let’s be honest, is most of the time.

Before touching a single number, I start with the funnel. What’s the revenue target? How long does it take to close a deal? What’s the win rate? If you need $1 million in new ARR and your average deal is $10K, you’re hunting for 100 new customers. If only 10 percent of SQLs close, you need 1,000 SQLs. That means you probably need 10,000 leads, depending on your funnel math. That’s what your budget needs to support. Not five random line items with dollar amounts pulled from last year’s Google Sheet.

Next, I sort the spend. Not by channel. By purpose.

First bucket is revenue workhorses. This is the stuff that consistently converts. Things like retargeting, lifecycle emails, sales enablement content that the sales team actually uses.

Second bucket is slow burns. SEO, content plays, influencer partnerships. These take time but are important for future growth.

Third bucket is fluff. Tactics that look impressive in a marketing update slide but quietly suck budget with little return. I once inherited a monthly webinar series that had great signups and zero revenue. We quietly shut it down and reallocated the budget into sales automation and better BOFU content. No one asked about the webinars again.

Now let’s talk CAC, because people love to quote it like it’s a fixed law of nature. “Our CAC is $900.” Sure, but is that blended? Just paid? Is it including salary, tools, and creative? Does it assume leads close in 30 days or 120? When I use CAC, I break it down by channel, layer in LTV, and most importantly, look at the payback period. Long payback? Not touching it with tight cash flow. I once killed a LinkedIn campaign with a CAC of $2,000 and a 12-month payback. Reallocated that spend into our referral program. That had a CAC of $200 and a six-month payback. Revenue started moving again.

When I sit down with a CFO or founder, I bring three budget options. One that keeps the lights on. One that’s focused with a few clear growth bets. And one that’s aggressive but defensible. I also show the tradeoffs. Kill that $20K event and here’s what it gets us in paid search, content syndication, or ABM tech. No begging. Just choices.

Also, I always try to protect 10 to 15 percent of the budget for weird experiments. One time we tested a $500 podcast sponsorship with an audience of maybe 2,000 people. It brought in five SQLs in two months and beat our branded ad campaigns. You need space to try stuff that isn’t in the marketing playbook from 2018.

Your budget isn’t just a spreadsheet. It’s your strategy written in numbers. If it looks like a finance doc, you’re doing it wrong. If it makes your team nervous but also excited, you’re probably close. Prioritize what works. Let go of what doesn’t. Keep a little room for surprises. That’s how you grow when things are tight.