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How to Budget Across Brand, Demand, and Expand
refinelabs.com
Quoted on this wiki
Every place a page here uses this source, in the order the words come in it.
Step 1 Pull your last two quarters of inbound revenue. Get enough volume to see patterns. If your sales cycle is long, go even further back. “Map each deal back to its real source. Use self-reported attribution, attribution software, sales notes, call recordings. Whatever helps get closer to the truth.” Step 3 Label the origin by motion. Did that deal come from Brand, Demand, or Expand activity?
Where budget gets misaligned “A lot of companies default to overfunding Demand. It shows up in pipeline. It’s tied to revenue. It’s easier to defend in a QBR.” But here’s what happens when demand gets overfunded without the other motions in place:
But here’s what happens when demand gets overfunded without the other motions in place: “You get bloated pipeline from the wrong leads” CAC goes up
Sales cycles get longer “Revenue becomes harder to predict” The issue usually isn’t the spend itself. It’s misalignment between what the business needs and what marketing is actually resourced to do.
If you want to run the same exercise we did, here’s what we recommend: “Pull your last two quarters of inbound revenue. Get enough volume to see patterns. If your sales cycle is long, go even further back.” Step 2 Map each deal back to its real source. Use self-reported attribution, attribution software, sales notes, call recordings. Whatever helps get closer to the truth.
So we stopped starting with “how much should we spend on each channel” and started with: “What’s the business trying to solve?” What’s getting in the way?
What’s the business trying to solve? “What’s getting in the way?” Can AI help us improve effienciencyor create friction in each?
Can AI help us improve effienciencyor create friction in each? “Which motion: brand, demand, or expand will help fix it?” That question alone are changeing how we plan.
Now we’re bringing it together with the one thing that either builds momentum or quietly stalls it: your budget. “Right now, there’s pressure to show results fast. So it’s no surprise teams default to what’s familiar and usually whatever shows up cleanly in attribution software.” That usually means dumping most of the budget into performance marketing. Because it looks good on paper. Because it’s easier to justify. Because you can point to a dashboard.
Right now, there’s pressure to show results fast. So it’s no surprise teams default to what’s familiar and usually whatever shows up cleanly in attribution software. “That usually means dumping most of the budget into performance marketing. Because it looks good on paper. Because it’s easier to justify. Because you can point to a dashboard.” But that’s not how strong brands grow. And it’s definitely not how sustainable, efficient businesses scale.
What are we still paying for because it worked in 2022? “Are we funding the things we actually believe in, or just what’s easy to report?” You don’t need to rebuild everything. But if what’s driving growth today looks nothing like what you’re funding, it’s time to reset.
In Strategy