How to Allocate Your Ad Budget Across Campaigns

The biggest budget mistake is spreading too thin. When you divide 100,000 BDT across 10 campaigns, each gets 10,000 BDT — not enough to reach statistical significance. You end up with 10 campaigns that all look mediocre and no clear winners.

The 70-20-10 framework works well. Allocate 70% of your budget to proven winners, 20% to scaling campaigns that are showing promise, and 10% to testing new creative and audiences. This ensures you are always optimizing, always scaling, and always learning.

Within prospecting, allocate budget by expected value. If your lookalike audience historically converts at 2x the rate of broad interest, it should get 2x the budget. Let historical performance guide allocation, not gut feeling.

Retargeting should get a fixed percentage, typically 15-20% of total budget. Retargeting audiences are smaller but convert at much higher rates. The key is to cap retargeting spend so it does not eat into prospecting budget.

Review allocation weekly, not daily. Daily budget changes are usually reactions to noise. Look at 7-day rolling averages before making allocation decisions. If a campaign has been underperforming for 2 weeks, it is time to reallocate.

Finally, always keep a small reserve for opportunities. When a new audience or creative format emerges, you want budget ready to test it immediately. A 5-10% reserve lets you move fast without disrupting your core campaigns.