The Marketing Budget Allocator: Return Per Dollar, By Channel

In the sample $4,500 month, a dollar in SEO returns $3.19 of gross profit, a dollar in social ads returns $1.17, and the sponsorship banner returns $1.08 — a 3× spread inside one budget, invisible until the channels sit in one table. Moving $700 from the bottom to the top — with honest haircuts for diminishing returns — adds $724 a month on the same total spend.

How it works

• The Channel Ledger — spend, leads, close rate and gross profit per customer, per channel → cost per lead, CAC, and the number that decides: return per dollar, ranked. Cheap leads that don't close are expensive — the sample's cheapest leads have its worst return
• The Reallocation — cuts lose at 80% of channel average (cut dollars were the weakest dollars); adds gain at 70–80% (the next dollar faces diminishing returns). Both factors yours to set. Net change priced before you commit
• Track It Weekly — the one-question attribution system that beats every dashboard, the 90-day audition rule, the pilot-light rule (never zero a working channel), and one move per month so you know which decision moved the number

Built for

Whoever owns the budget: marketing managers · fractional CMOs and agencies reporting to clients · home services and local businesses · e-commerce.

What you get

One .xlsx file, four tabs, instant download. Excel, Google Sheets, Apple Numbers, LibreOffice. No macros, no subscription. Eight channel rows, all factors editable.