How should you split your 2027 marketing budget by channel?
Enter your 2027 program budget, revenue target, win rate, deal size and the share of pipeline marketing sources. Then set each channel’s share of the budget, its cost per qualified opportunity and the months before it produces pipeline. The planner shows the opportunities and pipeline each channel creates in 2027, the coverage of your target and the budget that would close the gap.
Agree this with your CRO. The rest comes from SDR outbound, sales and partners.
Your split by channel
The starting figures are example assumptions for a mid-market or enterprise B2B company with a cycle of six months or more, not benchmarks. Replace each cost per qualified opportunity with your own CRM figure (spend divided by opportunities sales accepted) and each lag with the months before that channel’s first opportunities.
How it works: spend runs evenly through the year, and each channel produces opportunities only after its lag, so a channel with a three-month lag delivers nine months of its full-year rate in 2027. Pipeline is opportunities times deal size; eventual revenue from this pipeline at your win rate is about $8.0M, part of it closing in 2028.
Your split covers 74% of the pipeline your target needs
$3.0M across 6 channels creates about 533 qualified opportunities and $32M of pipeline in 2027, against $43M needed.
Figures stay in your browser unless you ask us to send the full plan.
How it works
Pipeline the target needs
New-business target divided by win rate, times the share marketing sources. Divided by deal size, that is the number of qualified opportunities marketing must create.
Opportunities by channel
Each channel’s spend divided by its cost per qualified opportunity gives a full-year rate. The planner counts only the months after the channel’s lag, because spend in late 2027 creates pipeline in 2028.
Pipeline and coverage
Opportunities times deal size gives pipeline by channel. The total, divided by the pipeline the target needs, is your coverage.
The gap
If coverage is below 100%, the planner shows the missing opportunities and the budget that would buy them at your blended cost per opportunity. Moving money to channels with a lower in-year cost per opportunity is usually cheaper than adding budget.
Questions about this tool
How should a B2B company split its marketing budget by channel?
By job and by evidence. Give each channel one job (capture demand, prime accounts, convert engaged accounts or prove results), judge it by its own metric, and set its share from your cost per qualified opportunity and how much spend it can absorb. The starting split in the planner is an example, not a benchmark.
Where do the default costs per opportunity come from?
They are example assumptions for a mid-market or enterprise B2B company with a sales cycle of six months or more, chosen to illustrate the method. Replace them with your own CRM figures: program spend by channel divided by qualified opportunities that sales accepted.
Why does the planner count a lag for each channel?
Because B2B channels create pipeline on different clocks. Search can produce opportunities within weeks, while LinkedIn priming, ABM and content often take several months. Ignoring the lag overstates what a channel delivers inside the year.
How much pipeline should I expect per dollar?
Pipe-to-spend is pipeline created divided by program spend. It depends on deal size and cost per qualified opportunity, so compare it with your own history by channel rather than with a generic ratio.
Is my data stored?
No. The figures stay in your browser unless you ask for the full plan by email.
Turn your numbers into a plan
Two free guides that pick up where this tool stops. Each opens on the page, and we email you the PDF. See all guides and checklists
