How To Get Your Ad Budget Approved In 2024
Looking to ask your boss or client for more ad budget?
This can feel really uncomfortable the first time but I promise it gets easier.
With a simple shift in mindset and some solid tactics you’ll be securing budget in no time.
Here are 3 simple but effective steps for you to implement before having that budget conversation.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Step 1: Pull the numbers
Your client or boss wants to be successful.
They want to surpass their goals (just like you).
If you can show them how your increased budget will make this happen, they will gladly give it to you.
Remembering this will help you release the anxiety associated with asking for more budget.
The key is you need to sell your stakeholders on WHY they should invest more and the way you'll do that is by building a case that makes them as certain as possible.
Don’t assume your clients or managers will be able to realize this on their own.
Build a no-brainer case that makes saying anything but yes sound illogical.
This starts with pulling the numbers 👇
Answer your critical questions
Put your investor hat on and answer critical questions such as:
- Which channels are performing best?
Ex: Google Ads driving the most opps at the lowest cost
- What's the overall blended trend? (paid + organic)
Ex: Opps are increasing QoQ at a 25% lower cost
- What's the current return on investment?
Ex: $6 pipe-to-spend and 150% ROI
Depending on your company, goals, and what you’re asking budget for this will vary.
Brainstorm all of the key questions you’ll need to pull data to answer.
The difficulty of this step will vary on your current level of reporting.
If you don’t already I HIGHLY recommend building a Paid Media dashboard that connects your ad spend to pipeline and revenue performance reported in your CRM.
Here’s an example of our Paid Media Dashboard Template in our Building a Paid Media Program course:
You can get free access to this template and learn how to set it up in Module 3, Lesson 3 of the course.
It’s going to be hard to ask for more ad budget if you can’t prove that your current campaigns are actually contributing to the bottom line.
Don’t have any data?
If you’re reading this and saying, Silvio how can I pull numbers if I don’t have any?
Maybe you’re trying to secure budget for a new channel.
If this is the case I have two recommendations:
1. Run a pilot campaign for $100
Let’s say you’re trying to secure budget to test X (Twitter) Ads.
Put together $100 (most companies can afford this) and launch a pilot campaign.
The only goal of this campaign is to understand what are your real costs (ex: CPM, CPC).
Once you have this information you can work backwards from your goals to create a starting budget.
For example:
- $3 CPC at a 5% landing page conversion rate = $60 cost per lead
- $60 cost per lead at a 3% lead to opportunity ratio = $1,980 cost per opportunity
- $1,980 cost per opportunity at a 20% win rate = $9,900 cost per closed won deal
If you need help running the numbers, check out our Google Ads budget calculator.
From here you’ll have a good idea of what a starting budget would look like.
You’ll also have a sense of what’s possible on this channel.
2. Do some research
Ask around or search for benchmarks associated with the channel you’re looking to invest in.
Even just collecting anecdotal evidence (ex: screenshots of others) talking about how much success they’ve had with this specific channel, tactic, etc can go a long way.
LinkedIn polls are a great way to collect this feedback:
You can DM the respondents asking for more information.
The TL;DR here is don’t let lack of data be an excuse to show up empty handed.
Once you’ve pulled all the necessary information it’s time to find the story.
Step 2: Find the story
Behind the data there is a story being told, it's your job to find it and tell it.
Here's some key questions to answer to help find it:
- What went well? (the highlights)
- What went bad? (the lowlights)
- Where are we today vs before? (the journey)
- What were the biggest blockers? (the obstacle)
- Where do we go from here? (the opportunities)
Data alone won't persuade, and stories without data are subject to suspicion.
A combination of both is required in order to effectively present your case.
Image above is Module 6, Lesson 1 of our Building a Paid Media Program course
For example, perhaps I’m trying to secure more budget for Google Ads:
- What went well? (the highlights) some text
- Google Ads contributed 25% more opportunities at a $7 pipe-to-spend ratio.
- What went bad? (the lowlights)some text
- We missed out on 57% more volume due to budget limitations.
- Where are we today vs before? (the journey) some text
- We’ve optimized our pipe-to-spend efficiency from $3 to $7.
- What were the biggest blockers? (the obstacle)some text
- High search lost to budget for our top contributing campaigns.
- No landing page testing due to limited development resources.
- Where do we go from here? (the opportunities)some text
- With an additional $25,000 in budget we can scale our top contributing campaigns and yield up to 35% more demo requests at a $15 CPC and 5% landing page conversion rate.
Here’s a simple presentation template you can use to present your case and answer each key question:
Once you've found the story and pulled the numbers you're ready to present.
Step 3: Present your case
After steps 1-2 the majority of the prep work is done.
Now it’s time to get the meeting scheduled with your boss or client.
You could have the most beautiful slides and compelling case but if you can’t effectively communicate the significance of what you’re asking it won’t matter.
Thankfully, like any skill, communication is something you can improve on with practice.
5 unconventional tips to implement in your budget presentation:
1. Remember you both want the same thing.
Ultimately, your stakeholders want you to be right. If you can drive more pipeline/revenue they'd happily give you the budget (assuming financial availability).
The challenge though is like an investor they are analyzing the potential upside and downside of your plan, and don't believe the promises you're making.
You need to addresses their concerns with a combination of data and storytelling that makes them as certain as possible.
Just remembering this simple truth will help you show up differently.
2. It’s a conversation, not a lecture.
You’ll want to keep this discussion conversational.
Make sure to check-in frequently with your boss or client and ask things like:
- Is this making sense?
- Did you have any questions?
- Are there any concerns you have that I haven’t addressed?
The last thing you want to do is to speak to them for 30-minutes and then ask:
“soooooo did you have any questions…..? 😅”
3. Replace “I think” with “the data suggests”
You’ve pulled the data and done the homework.
Don’t water down your points by saying “I think” get in the habit of replacing this with “the data suggests” and then calling out the data point that comes to mind.
This will make your perspectives and points of view far more compelling.
Which ultimately lead to more certainty from the decision maker.
Greater certainty = greater chance of budget approval
4. Don’t forget to smile.
This might sound silly 😂 but it’s really easy to forget to smile.
This conversation is about new opportunities, and that’s exciting.
Instead of telling yourself I’m nervous, reframe it as I’m excited.
This is called anxiety reappraisal and Alison Wood a psychologist at the Harvard Business School found evidence to support.
Here’s a quick excerpt from her abstract: “Across several studies involving karaoke singing, public speaking, and math performance, I investigate an alternative strategy: reappraising anxiety as excitement. Compared to those who attempt to calm down, individuals who reappraise their anxious arousal as excitement feel more excited and perform better” — Alison Wood Brooks
Don’t knock it until you try it!
5. Turn your weakness into a strength
Maybe you’re reading this article and saying to yourself:
- I’m not a good presenter because I’m an introvert
- I’m not a good presenter because English isn’t my first language.
Whatever your weaknesses are, turn them into strengths with humor.
When you start budget approval call begin by addressing your big weakness with humor.
Here’s what this might look like for the weaknesses above:
- Hey {First Name} thanks for the time today. As you might have noticed I’m not going to be giving a Ted talk anytime soon with my English so if you’re having trouble understanding just stop me at any point.
- Hey {First Name} thanks for the time today. I just wanted to start off by saying I’d rather chug a bottle of hot sauce then give a presentation but I believe so much in what I’m going cover today that I had to do this – so I appreciate you baring with any mishaps I might have.
Whatever your weaknesses are don’t run from them.
Embrace it and transform it into a strength.
Additional Resources
If you want to learn more about securing budget checkout Module 6 - Lesson 1 of our Building a Paid Media Program course, it’s 100% free and takes < 90 seconds to sign up.
If you want to dive deeper into B2B advertising check out some of our other top articles:
- B2B Advertising in 2024: The Definitive Guide
- How to Build a Multichannel B2B Retargeting Strategy (Step-By-Step)
Thanks for reading, good luck on getting your budget approved!
(you got this) 🎉
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50+ Ad Specs for The Top 10 Ad Platforms
Have you ever wondered what dimensions does that ad require? 🤔
Then started searching to find the answer? (same here lol)
To save you (and ourselves) trouble, we gathered the most popular ad specs across 10 channels in one place:
- Google Display Ad Specs
- LinkedIn Ad Specs
- Twitter (X) Ad Specs
- Quora Ad Specs
- Reddit Ad Specs
- YouTube Ad Specs
- Google Discovery / Demand Gen Ad Specs
- TikTok Ad Specs
- Meta Ad Specs
⭐️ Bookmark this article and refer back to it when you need ad specs.
Google Display Ad Specs
Source: support.google.com
Browse examples at adstransparency.google.com
LinkedIn Ad Specs
Source: business.linkedin.com
Browse examples at: linkedin.com/ad-library/home
X (Twitter) Ad Specs
Source: business.twitter.com
- You can request to have video lengths increased up to 10 minutes
- Carousel can use images or videos but must be in the same aspect ratio (ex: 1:1 or 16:9)
Quora Ad Specs
Source: image ads, video ads
Reddit Ad Specs
Source: reddit.my.site.com
* Headlines will be truncated to 100 characters on mobile/mobile web for the conversation placement.
Youtube Ad Specs
Source: support.google.com
Browse examples at adstransparency.google.com
Google Discovery / Demand Gen Ad Specs
Source: support.google.com
Browse examples at adstransparency.google.com
TikTok Ad Specs
Source: ads.tiktok.com
Browse examples at library.tiktok.com/ads
Meta Ad Specs (Facebook/Instagram)
Source: business.facebook.com
Browse examples at: www.facebook.com/ads/library
Resources for Mastering B2B Advertising
Hope you found this ad specs article useful!
If you’re serious about mastering B2B advertising then you definitely need to join 1,000+ B2B marketers leveling up their paid advertising skill sets in AdConversion.
Here’s 4 reasons why you should consider joining. Every one of our on-demand courses are:
✅ 100% free access.
✅ Taught by vetted industry experts.
✅ Have workbooks, resources, and templates.
✅ Less than 10 minutes per lesson.
We believe every marketer should know how to scale paid ads so they can:
• Scale their ideas
• Level up their careers
• Make a positive impact
Click Here to Join 1,000+ B2B Marketers Today and start leveling up your advertising skill set.
Takes < 90 seconds to sign up (seriously I timed it 😂)
3 Powerful Strategies For Scaling SaaS Google Ads You Need To Know
Google Ads is a blessing and a curse.
You're blessed with intent and cursed with scale.
It’s a powerful channel for scaling pipeline for SaaS startups but low search volume is a challenge.
In this article you’re going to learn 3 powerful strategies for scaling your SaaS google ads further.
This won’t solve your limited search volume issues that's just the nature of your target keywords and B2B SaaS but these strategies will help you squeeze more performance from your account.
Let’s dive into it 👇
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Strategy #1: Broad Match Discovery
- Strategy #2: Advertising outside of English
- Strategy #3: Industry campaigns
Strategy #1: Broad Match Discovery
Before you click away I’m not talking about using broad match in the traditional sense.
Where you let Google show your ads for WHATEVER they think is relevant.
Broad match discovery is where you combine broad match keywords AND an audience.
It essentially means you’re giving Google the flexibility to show your ads for whatever they feel is relevant but within the confines of your targeted audience.
I would not recommend testing this approach unless you have:
- Strong negative keyword lists
- Proven converting phrase match keywords
- Significant conversion volume (> 15/month)
The benefit is you get to scale your top keywords safely past phrase match.
How to implement broad match discovery:
Step 1: Find proven converting phrase match keywords
Review your performance across converting phrase match keywords to identify which you’re going to prioritize testing with broad match discovery.
Don’t rely on “total conversions” make sure you’re viewing performance by keyword based on the custom metrics that matter for your business (ex: Demo, Trial, SQL, SAL, Opp, etc).
Once you’ve identified some worthwhile keywords it’s time for step 2.
Step 2: Brainstorm your targeted audiences
Google has 5 audience types you can leverage for targeting in your search campaigns.
- Your data = website visitors or contact lists
- In-market = people actively researching a given topic
- Life events = people who’ve accomplished a life milestone (ex: create a business, get married)
- Detailed demographics = industries, company sizes, education level.
- Affinity = people who are interested in a certain topic
You can use a mixture of all these different types of audiences to layer on top of your broad match discovery campaigns.
If you’re dealing with < 500 searches/month for your keywords I recommend clustering a minim of 10-15 audiences on top of your campaigns to help with delivery.
Step 3: Setup a campaign experiment
The safest way you can test broad match discovery is in a 50/50 experiment alongside your top converting phrase match campaign.
You can easily AB test in Google Ads using the campaign experiments feature.
Located under Campaigns > Experiments
Using this feature build an experiment splitting the traffic by 50% for your original campaign vs the experiment version using broad match AND the targeted audiences you brainstormed in step 2.
Strategy #2: Advertising outside of English
English is the most competitive language in the world with the majority of advertisers.
We’ve seen reductions of up to 70% in our average CPC targeting other languages.
If your company has the resources to sell in multiple languages – take advantage of localization!
Localization campaigns are when you target keywords, write ad copy, and design landing pages that all are in your audience's native language (ex: Spanish, German, Portuguese).
You’ll reap the benefits of lower costs due to less competition.
The downside however with localization is search volume.
If you’re already advertising in English outside of North America and finding success, definitely recommend testing this strategy.
How to implement localized campaigns:
Step 1: Find proven converting phrase match keywords
Review your performance across converting phrase match keywords to identify which you’re going to prioritize testing with broad match discovery.
Don’t rely on “total conversions” make sure you’re viewing performance by keyword based on the custom metrics that matter for your business (ex: Demo, Trial, SQL, SAL, Opp, etc).
Step 2: Brainstorm your targeted languages
Ask your internal team what languages your sales team is able to sell in.
Based on your options make a list of potential languages.
Next, if you’re advertising outside of North America, review the top performing countries and identify their local languages and see if you have the internal resources that can speak that language.
If you can’t sell in this language then this strategy won’t make sense.
Step 3: Hire a local translator
Don’t make the mistake of relying on Google Translate to perform the bulk of your translation.
You’ll want to hire a translator that grew up in the area in which you want to advertise.
For instance, if you’re advertising in Portuguese.
The dialect for Europeans living in Portugal and those living in Brazil is very different.
A local brazilian can tell if it’s not their dialect just like a native portuguese.
I recommend hiring locals off Upwork can be as low as $12/hour depending on the language.
These translations will make a world difference in your ad and landing page copy.
Strategy #3: Industry campaigns
Industry campaigns can be great for coverage and quality.
This is where you’re going to bid on a desired keyword and add a related industry term.
For example, let’s say bidding on the keyword “crm software” here’s how you can modify this keyword to make it industry specific:
- healthcare crm software
- crm software for fintech
- crm software for small businesses
The benefits of industry campaigns:
- Personalized ad copy that can yield greater CTRs
- Higher quality leads due to a more qualified search term
- Lower cost per click prices due to less competition
The downside however is search volume (the constant struggle of Google for SaaS 😅).
How to implement industry campaigns:
Step 1: Find proven converting phrase match keywords
Just like the other strategies we’re going to identify proven keywords first that we can create industry variations for.
Step 2: Brainstorm your target industries
Run a win rate analysis in your CRM and understand which industries have the shortest sales cycles and largest deal sizes? Based on your findings, prioritise the industries in which you want to target.
Step 3: Build and prevent keyword overlap
Once you have your keywords and target industries you’re ready to build your campaigns.
Make sure to add your industry terms as negative keywords in your generic non-brand campaigns.
Otherwise you can have people seeing your generic ads for your industry terms.
Hope you found this article helpful!
Best of luck scaling your Google Ads campaigns for your SaaS.
Resources for mastering B2B advertising
If you’re serious about mastering B2B advertising then you definitely need to join 1,000+ B2B marketers leveling up their paid advertising skill sets in AdConversion.
Here’s 4 reasons why you should consider joining. Every one of our on-demand courses are:
✅ 100% free access.
✅ Taught by vetted industry experts.
✅ Have workbooks, resources, and templates.
✅ Less than 10 minutes per lesson.
We believe every marketer should know how to scale paid ads so they can:
- Scale their ideas
- Level up their careers
- Make a positive impact
Click Here to Join 1,000+ B2B Marketers Today and start leveling up your advertising skill set.
Takes < 90 seconds to sign up (seriously we timed it 😂)