How to plan and manage paid media budgets in an AI-driven world

Managing budgets across multiple paid media channels is one of the most important skills in a PPC marketer’s toolkit. 

You’re constantly deciding how to allocate spend across channels and campaigns, how to handle big budget swings, and whether to set total or daily budgets.

In an AI-driven ad platform world, campaign budgets remain one of the few levers marketers still fully control – and they deserve careful thought. 

Structuring your budget effectively

Depending on your business model, you may have more or less input into the overall paid media budget. 

However, you usually have more control over how that budget gets broken out across channels and campaigns.

Start by looking at the total budget you have to work with. 

It’s unwise to split a small budget across too many campaigns, as you’ll limit the platforms’ ability to learn and gather enough data to drive efficient results. 

But with a larger budget, you can start segmenting out portions for testing channels or campaign types you haven’t run before. 

Dig deeper: PPC budget planning: Aligning business goals, ad spend, and performance

For example, if you’ve only been active in paid search and are already maxing out opportunities there, and the brand has additional budget, consider allocating some of it to Google Demand Gen or social channels to see how performance compares.

Next, think through the brand’s current level of awareness.

If it’s still building credibility, putting more budget toward social prospecting may help increase visibility and build audiences you can later retarget.

Assess your ability to support campaign types that require creative assets.

If obtaining or approving creative is difficult, keeping more budget in paid search may be the smarter move so you can get a campaign live more easily, while earmarking budget for additional channels once assets are ready.

Connecting budget decisions across channels

When deciding on budget allocations, avoid viewing individual channels or campaign types in isolation.

Consider how each one may be affecting the others, and use data when you can to guide those decisions.

For example, you may see a higher conversion rate from search after launching a YouTube campaign that helps drive awareness for your products, along with video viewer remarketing audiences performing efficiently in search. 

You may not see many direct conversions from the YouTube campaign, but if the data shows it’s improving overall conversion efficiency, it makes sense to keep budget allocated to both YouTube and search.

Aligning your budget with seasonal demand

When mapping out budgets over the course of a year, consider when peak buying times are and when interest may slump for the industry you’re dealing with. 

• For ecommerce brands, the weeks leading up to a holiday season are generally an…