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Most founders pick an ad budget by copying a percentage they read somewhere, which is exactly backwards. Rollins gives you a concrete number to test a channel conclusively (roughly 1,000 to 3,000 dollars) and, more usefully, ties it to your own math: your max acceptable cost per customer is lifetime value minus cost of goods minus the margin you need. It is a clean starting point for sizing a test instead of guessing.
How Much Marketing Budget Does A Startup Need?
From Practical Marketing by Brandon Rollins
- Set a fixed test budget to learn whether a channel works, then decide, do not let a test quietly turn into open-ended scaling.
- Your real spend ceiling comes from unit economics (lifetime value minus costs), not from an industry benchmark percentage.
- Separate exploration (small capped tests of new channels) from exploitation (scaling a channel you have already proven).
