Advertising Budget: Distributing on What You Know

You ask: how much do I give each channel?

And the question is wrong from the start.

The rule

Do not distribute your budget across channels — distribute it across what you know the result of.

A channel is not a vessel to be filled ← it is a road to a result.

And whoever distributes across channels starts from the tools ← and whoever distributes across results starts from their business.

And the difference is practical: the first asks "how much for this one and that one?", and the second asks "what do I know works, and how much can I put into it?"

Where the wrong distribution comes from

Three sources, all of which look reasonable:

1. Copying ← "people spend here so I will spend here" ← and they are in another market at another margin.

2. Equality ← "three channels, so a third each" ← which looks fair and is arbitrary.

3. Enthusiasm ← a new channel takes more because it is new.

And the second is the most dangerous ← because it looks like a method and is a division with no information.

Three questions before any money

1. What do I know the result of? ← a channel, a campaign or an offer I tried and measured.

2. How much can it bear before it saturates? ← not everything that works can bear doubling (lesson four).

3. How much can I bear to lose on the unknown? ← and this answer decides the size of your experiments (three).

And whoever answers all three has a distribution ← and whoever does not has a division.

One judgement for all of them

Do not compare one channel against another by their two figures ← every channel credits itself.

And the judgement is your own total: your sales over your spend ← and its rules are in "Cross-Platform Measurement", lesson seven ← and I will not repeat them.

And what concerns me here: you cannot distribute without a judgement ← whoever distributes on contradictory figures is distributing on claims.

And if you have no total figure, start there ← then come back to this course.

When this course does not concern you

Three cases:

1. You have one channel ← so there is no distribution ← and your need is knowing when to raise it, which is lesson four alone.

2. Your spend is very small ← dividing it fragments it ← and the right thing is to gather it in one place until it learns (lesson two).

3. You measure nothing ← so any distribution is a guess ← so start with measuring.

And the second is the commonest ← whoever divides a small amount across three channels gives none of them enough to learn, so all of them fail, and they conclude that advertising does not work.

What this course does not do

I will not explain the interface buttons or name a platform. Screens change ← and what does not change is that money goes to what you know the result of, and that what you do not know has a limited basket.

And I will not state an amount or a distribution rate ← not "how much to start with", and not "how much per channel" ← these differ with your field, your margin and your buying cycle, and a published figure becomes a reference the reader measures themselves against on no basis.

And I will give you rules instead ← fit for every size, and lasting after everything else changes.

And I will not promise you the right distribution raises your sales. Distribution creates no demand ← it stops you spending money where there is no result, and gathers it where there is.

Action steps

1. Write the rule: distribute across what you know the result of, not across channels.
2. Write your current distribution and the reason for every figure in it.
3. Strike out every figure whose reason is copying, equality or enthusiasm.
4. Answer the three questions before any money.
5. Confirm you have a total figure — otherwise start there.
6. Do not compare one channel against another by their two figures.
7. Go through the three cases where this does not concern you.
8. If your spend is small, gather it rather than divide it.