Building a Three-Tier Channel Budget from a Blank Slate
Objective: Given a revenue figure and company stage, calculate a defensible total marketing budget using the lesson's benchmark ranges, then split it into the 60/40 brand-performance rule and the three-tier foundation/growth/experiments framework.
You're the first dedicated marketing hire for a new consumer navigation app division at MapmyIndia (CE Info Systems), the Delhi-founded digital mapping and geospatial technology company (roughly ₹7,420 Cr market cap at listing). The division is projected to do ₹40 crore in revenue this year and has never had a formal marketing budget, spend has been ad hoc, campaign by campaign.
Work top-down: pick the right percent-of-revenue range for a growth-stage division first, then split that total using the 60/40 rule, then split again into the three tiers. Skipping straight to naming channels before the top-line number is set is the single most common mistake in this exercise.
Before you start
What you'll need
Free path (everything below is enough to finish)
Linked cells make the whole build traceable back to one top-line number, which is the actual point of the exercise.
Paid upgrades (optional, faster/deeper)
Looker Studio is actually free, listed here only as an optional presentation upgrade over a static spreadsheet, not a paid necessity.
Not required to build the numbers, but useful once the plan needs to be presented to leadership on a recurring quarterly cadence.
The process
2 steps
Step 01 of 02
The lesson's 2026 benchmarks put growth-stage companies at 10-15% of revenue, versus 15-20% for pre-product-market-fit startups and 5-10% for mature enterprises, the less proven the channels, the higher the justified spend.
This division is growth-stage (proven channels exist, now scaling) on ₹40 crore in projected revenue. What total budget range is defensible, and where in that range should a still-young division sit?
Procedure
- Classify the division's stage (growth-stage, not pre-PMF or mature) using the lesson's own criteria
- Select the matching range (10-15% of revenue)
- Lean toward the higher end of the range since the division itself, unlike the parent company, is still young
- Calculate the resulting rupee total and hold it as the top-line number for the rest of the exercise
Division stage: Growth-stage (proven channels, division is new) Revenue: ₹40,00,00,000 Range selected: 13% (upper-middle of 10-15%, division still young) Total marketing budget: ₹5,20,00,000
Healthy
The chosen percentage sits inside the stage-matched range and the reasoning names a specific factor (division age within a mature parent company) for where in the range it lands.
Unhealthy
Picking a round number like 10% because it 'sounds standard' without connecting it to the division's actual stage, or copying the parent company's overall percentage instead of the division's own.
What this means
The percent-of-revenue range is a stage-matched starting point, not a lookup table, the specific number within the range should reflect how proven this specific budget-holder's channels actually are.
So what do I do about it?
| Symptom | Action | Effort |
|---|---|---|
| No clear rationale for where in the 10-15% range the number landed | Name one concrete factor (division age, channel maturity, competitive pressure) that justifies the specific percentage chosen | 5 min |
Step 02 of 02
Binet and Field's 996-case-study analysis supports a roughly 60% brand, 40% performance split as a durable default, and within that, the lesson's three tiers (foundation 50-60%, growth 25-35%, experiments 10-15%) turn the single total into a reviewable, channel-level plan.
Starting from the ₹5.2 crore total, what does the brand/performance split look like in rupees, and how does the three-tier framework further divide it into a channel-level plan?
Procedure
- Apply 60/40 to the total: brand building vs. demand generation and nurturing combined
- Apply the three tiers to the full total: Foundation 55%, Growth 30%, Experiments 15%
- Name at least one real channel per tier (e.g. Foundation: proven paid search; Experiments: an untested short-form video format)
- Note that early-stage divisions like this one skew further toward demand generation within the brand/performance split, since there's no brand equity to protect yet
Brand/performance split: ₹2,08,00,000 brand (40%, below the 60% default given the division's early stage) / ₹3,12,00,000 performance (60%) Tier 1 Foundation (55%): ₹2,86,00,000, proven paid search + core SEO content Tier 2 Growth (30%): ₹1,56,00,000, a newer short-video ad platform showing early promise Tier 3 Experiments (15%): ₹78,00,000, one untested influencer partnership, capped downside
Healthy
Every rupee in the tier breakdown traces back to the single total budget cell, and the brand/performance split has an explicit, stated reason for deviating from the 60/40 default (or a reason for following it).
Unhealthy
Naming channels for each tier without the numbers actually summing back to the total, or applying the 60/40 rule blindly to an early-stage division with no brand equity yet to protect.
What this means
A three-tier breakdown is only defensible if it's traceable, every tier's rupee figure and named channel should reconcile back to the single top-line number from step 1.
So what do I do about it?
| Symptom | Action | Effort |
|---|---|---|
| Tier totals don't sum back to the top-line budget | Rebuild the tier percentages from the single total cell instead of estimating each tier's rupee amount separately | 5 min |
Final deliverable
A linked budget sheet showing the total marketing budget, the brand/performance split with a stated reason, and a three-tier channel breakdown that sums back to the total.
See a reference example
Snowflake, division budget build (excerpt) Total: $8.4M (12% of $70M divisional revenue, growth-stage) Split: $3.36M brand (40%) / $5.04M performance (60%), skewed to performance given limited brand equity for this specific product line Tier 1 Foundation (58%): $4.87M Tier 2 Growth (28%): $2.35M Tier 3 Experiments (14%): $1.18M
Success criteria
You're done when you can:
- Selects a percent-of-revenue range that matches the stated company/division stage, not an arbitrary number
- Every tier's rupee amount reconciles back to the single total budget figure
- States an explicit reason for the brand/performance split chosen, whether it follows or deviates from 60/40