Why the percentage rule rarely helps
“Spend five to ten percent of revenue on marketing” is the answer you find everywhere. As orientation for an annual plan it is usable. For the question you actually have, it is not.
Two companies with two million in revenue each can need completely different budgets. A local trade business that wants to be found in three municipalities gets by on a fraction of what a provider needs when competing against established brands across Switzerland. The percentage rule knows nothing about your channels, your target area, your competition, or whether you can even measure what your money is doing.
The reverse approach is more useful: build from the bottom up. What does each channel need at a minimum to work, and what adds up to something sensible?
Your marketing budget has two parts
The most common source of confusion in budget conversations is that two different amounts get thrown into one pot.
The media budget
This is the money that flows directly to the platforms: Google, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube. It buys reach and clicks, and it is the part you set yourself. When someone says “advertising budget”, this is usually the amount they mean.
The fee for strategy, setup and management
This is the work: account structure, ads, audiences, measurement, ongoing optimisation, reporting. With us this fee is transparent and not tied to your advertising spend.
That point sounds technical but has a practical consequence. Models that charge a percentage of ad spend reward higher budgets. That is exactly the wrong incentive when the right recommendation in your case is to leave the budget where it is and steer it better.
For your planning it means this: budget for both parts separately, and ask of every offer which amount is which part.
What the individual channels need at a minimum
Not every channel has a floor, and anyone who invents one is selling you something. These are the starting points we state publicly.
- Google Ads: no minimum budget. Someone actively searching for your service is the cheapest demand there is. The strategy follows the budget, not the other way around. Even smaller amounts can work in a tightly defined search space.
- Social media ads: from CHF 1,500 media budget per month. Meta, Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn first have to learn who they should be addressing, and campaigns need data for that. On LinkedIn the sensible starting point is higher, because click prices there sit well above the other platforms.
- Display and video ads: from CHF 1,000 media budget per month. Pure remarketing to previous website visitors often needs less, broad awareness campaigns need more.
- SEO and visibility: no media budget. No money flows to a platform here. What gets calculated is the effort for technology and content. In return, SEO keeps working when the advertising budget is paused.
What those numbers mean and what actually happens inside a channel is covered in two articles in detail: Google Ads costs in Switzerland and Instagram advertising: costs and a sensible budget for SMEs.
The benchmark in six questions
If you want to apply these starting points to your own case, you do not have to do the maths yourself.
The marketing budget calculator asks six things: which channels are an option, what the outcome should be, how much you currently spend on advertising per month, whether campaigns are already running, who you want to reach and how measurement is set up. You then see a benchmark for your monthly media budget and, more importantly, what it is made of, with one line per channel.
The calculator does not flatter the numbers. It adds up the published starting points for the channels you selected and derives no figure of its own. Pick only channels without a minimum and it names none.
The most interesting case is a different one. If your current budget already exceeds the sum of those starting points, the calculator does not tell you to spend more. The honest answer then is that better steering will do more for you than a larger amount.
Three factors that move your budget more than your industry does
Target area
The same goal costs a multiple across Switzerland of what it costs in one region. Locally limited campaigns have hardly any wasted reach, and that is where a small budget still works. This is why we usually start focused and expand what works, rather than spreading a thin budget across the country from day one.
What that looks like in practice is shown in our article on Google Ads in Baden and Wettingen.
Starting position
An existing account is an asset, not a liability. Running or paused campaigns contain data about which search terms and ads work. The fastest progress often sits in what is already live, and it costs an analysis rather than extra budget. Starting from zero means planning for a learning phase: a well built campaign delivers its first reliable numbers after two to four weeks, and stable, predictable results after around three months.
Measurement
This is the factor most often overlooked and the one that costs the most money. Without conversion tracking it stays unclear which campaign produced enquiries. Google Analytics alone is not enough, it shows visits but not enquiries. Raising the budget without that measurement only increases the uncertainty. Why that is and what a simple setup for SMEs looks like is covered in Why good tracking matters more than a bigger ad budget.
Allocating budget without wishful thinking
The most widespread planning error is not a budget that is too small. It is a budget split across four channels because every channel “should be included too”. The result is four campaigns all sitting below their starting point, so none of them delivers.
An approach that works in practice:
- Pick one channel that matches the demand. If people actively search for your service, you start with search. If your offer needs explaining before anyone searches for it, you start with social.
- Fund that channel properly. One channel above its starting point beats three below it.
- Set up measurement before you start. Otherwise you will not know after three months whether it worked.
- Plan for a learning phase of two to four weeks. Rebuilding belongs in that period, judgements do not.
- Only expand what demonstrably works. The second channel comes out of results, not out of the plan.
For annual planning that means deliberately leaving part of the yearly budget unassigned. What you know after three months is worth more than any allocation you fix today.
When the website comes first
Advertising sends people to your website. If it is not clear there what you offer and how to reach you, you are paying for visits that lead nowhere. In that situation the cheapest budget decision is to fix the website first and start advertising afterwards.
What such a project costs and which items belong in it is covered in Website budget planning: what actually belongs in it. The website budget calculator gives you a benchmark for your project, also in six questions.
Frequently asked questions about marketing budgets
What percentage of revenue should go into marketing?
The rule of thumb usually quoted is five to ten percent, more for growth-focused companies and often less for trade businesses with full order books. Use the figure as a plausibility check for annual planning, not as a basis for calculation. What your marketing needs follows from channels, target area and starting position, not from your revenue.
How much budget does an SME need per month for online advertising?
That depends on the channel. For social media ads we state a starting point from CHF 1,500 media budget per month, for display and video ads from CHF 1,000. Google Ads has no minimum budget, and there the strategy follows what you can commit. In every case, the fee for strategy, setup and management comes on top.
When does more budget produce more enquiries?
When a campaign measurably works and is limited only by its budget, which you can spot when ads stop being served throughout the day. If measurement is missing, the audience is too broad or the website does not convince, more budget simply buys more of the same result. We say so openly before proposing an increase.
Which is better, Google Ads or social media ads?
They solve different jobs. Google Ads reaches people with existing demand and therefore delivers enquiries faster. Social media ads create attention for offers nobody is searching for yet, but they need more budget and more patience. On a tight budget you generally start where demand already exists.
How long until the budget pays off?
Google search ads deliver their first reliable numbers within two to four weeks, and we plan around three months for stable results. SEO takes longer but keeps working afterwards without paying per click. A budget written off as a failure after four weeks rarely had a budget problem, it had an expectation problem.
Your next step
Establish the benchmark before you debate channels. The marketing budget calculator shows you in six questions which monthly media budget makes sense for your channels and how that figure is composed. No registration, and the result appears immediately.
If you then want to know what is realistically achievable with that budget in your situation, take 30 minutes for a free initial conversation. We look at what is already running on your side and tell you honestly whether more budget solves your problem or something else does.
