--- title: Your 2027 Marketing Budget, Built to Flex description: Revamp your marketing budget for 2027 by focusing on flexible planning, prioritizing goals, and understanding revenue sources for sustainable growth. image: https://thegcstrategies.com/hubfs/blog_marketing_budget_simple.png --- [Skip to content](https://thegcstrategies.com/gc-strategies-blog/your-2027-marketing-budget-built-to-flex#main-content) [![gc-strategies-2025-updated-logo-logo-full-color-rgb](https://thegcstrategies.com/hubfs/gc-strategies-2025-updated-logo-logo-full-color-rgb.svg)](https://thegcstrategies.com) - [Fractional CMO Services](https://thegcstrategies.com/fractional-cmo-services) - [Media Production](https://thegcstrategies.com/media-production) - Results Show submenu for Results - [Construction Company Case Study](https://thegcstrategies.com/results/hopkins-wayson) - [Landscaping Company Case Study](https://thegcstrategies.com/results/proscape) - Why GCS Show submenu for Why GCS - [Who We Serve](https://thegcstrategies.com/who-we-serve) - [Team](https://thegcstrategies.com/about-us) - [Blog](https://thegcstrategies.com/gc-strategies-blog) - [About Us](https://thegcstrategies.com/about-us) Open main navigation Close main navigation - [Fractional CMO Services](https://thegcstrategies.com/fractional-cmo-services) - [Media Production](https://thegcstrategies.com/media-production) - Results Show submenu for Results - [Construction Company Case Study](https://thegcstrategies.com/results/hopkins-wayson) - [Landscaping Company Case Study](https://thegcstrategies.com/results/proscape) - Why GCS Show submenu for Why GCS - [Who We Serve](https://thegcstrategies.com/who-we-serve) - [Team](https://thegcstrategies.com/about-us) - [Blog](https://thegcstrategies.com/gc-strategies-blog) - [About Us](https://thegcstrategies.com/about-us) - [Contact us](https://thegcstrategies.com/contact) [Contact us](https://thegcstrategies.com/contact) [All posts](https://thegcstrategies.com/gc-strategies-blog/all) October 13, 2026 # Your 2027 Marketing Budget, Built to Flex By  Grant Covault  ·  4 minute read *Q4 planning from the marketing seat, and why “what did we spend last year?” is the wrong place to start.* Every year around this time, some version of the same question lands on my desk: what should the marketing budget be next year? And my honest first answer is almost always another question. Well, what do we think revenue is going to be? That usually gets a look, but it’s the whole problem in one exchange. Most marketing budgets get set as a fixed number, months in advance, based on revenue nobody actually knows yet. Then the year plays out differently than the plan, which it always does, and you’re either underspending while you hit your goals or pouring money into channels because the budget said you could. I got into this recently on our NextGen Strategies podcast (episode out in Nov, but I couldn't wait).  So before you lock in a 2027 marketing number, here’s how I’d think about it. ### Stop budgeting only off last year’s spreadsheet The most common way I see marketing budgets built is to pull year-to-date actuals, extrapolate them over twelve months, and call it a plan. It feels responsible. It’s mostly useless. All it tells you is what you happened to spend, not what you should spend to hit where you’re trying to go. A fixed annual number really only makes sense for very mature, slow-growth companies, nonprofits, or government, the kinds of organizations that already know roughly what revenue will be. For growth-minded businesses, marketing spend has to move with revenue, not sit frozen to a guess you made last October. ### Set it as a percentage, then reverse-engineer A cleaner starting point is to think in percentages. Decide the growth you’re after and the profit margin you want to protect, and marketing gets a slice of what’s left. Depending on the business, that slice can run anywhere from a lean 1-2% for a razor-thin-margin company (like my retail friends) up to 10%+ percent if you’re genuinely trying to push hard on growth. The exact number matters less than where it comes from. 8% tied to a real goal is a plan. 8% because that’s what you spent last year is a coincidence. Start from what you’re trying to accomplish and work backward, instead of starting from the spreadsheet and hoping it adds up. ### The move that actually makes it work: split the budget Here’s the part owners tell me is the most useful, and it’s simple. Once you land on your marketing percentage, split it into two buckets. **The first is non-negotiable.** This is the stuff that keeps the lights on, the things that have to run no matter what: your website, the core content cadence you’ve committed to, the tools you actually use, the baseline advertising or support that’s already working. If you turned these off, you’d feel it fast. **The second bucket is the parking lot.** These are the things you’re testing or would love to do if the year cooperates: a new channel, an event, a bigger campaign or video project, a tool you want to pilot. Good ideas, but not load-bearing. Say you land on eight percent of sales. Maybe roughly five of that as the non-negotiable baseline and keep the rest in the parking lot.  That one move changes how the whole year feels. When revenue dips and someone says “we need to cut, but I don’t know where,” the answer is already written: protect the baseline, pause the parking lot. Nobody’s panicking or hacking at the stuff that’s actually driving results. And when the year is running hot and it’s time to put gas on the fire, you’re not scrambling to invent a plan. You already know exactly where that next dollar goes, in priority order. "But Grant if I don't strongly advocate for the full 8% my controller will tell me I only get 5%". Yep, that could happen. I can't speak for every organization or person. If your company doesn't prioritize marketing or understand the value of what is going on, this likely will be an issue. But, I can tell you that for the growth minded small to mid-size businesses I work with, the owners and the ones controlling the purse strings really appreciate transparency and proactive planning approach.  ### Watch the leak, not just the spend One more thing I’d put on the list, because it’s easy to miss when you’re staring at the marketing line. Pay attention to where your revenue is actually coming from, net new business versus existing customers. I see companies pour money into the top of the funnel while losing just as much out of the bottom because nobody owns retention. If that’s you, more acquisition spend won’t fix it. Sometimes the highest-return marketing dollar next year isn’t a new campaign, it’s shoring up the experience that keeps the customers you already paid to win.  Don’t just chase new sales to paper over a leak. I've even gone as far to say "you're better off hiring a customer support or account manager than spend more on new acquisition marketing tactics".  ### Before you set the number, do the cleanup Last practical step, and the easiest win of all. Have someone pull the detail on what you actually spent on marketing this year, line by line. You’ll find the thing you signed up for in February that turned out to be a bust and you’re somehow still paying for. Cut it. You’ll also see the renewals and the plays that genuinely worked, which is where you decide what to double down on. Every dollar is precious and plenty of things are competing for each one, so go into 2027 having actually looked. ### Build it to flex None of this is about spending less or more. It’s about spending on purpose. Tie the number to your goals instead of last year’s spreadsheet, protect the baseline that keeps results coming, keep a ranked parking lot ready for when things go well or sideways, and revisit it as the year actually unfolds. That’s a marketing budget you can run with confidence instead of one you white-knuckle. If you want help building your 2027 marketing plan, or figuring out what belongs in the baseline versus the parking lot, reach out. That’s exactly the kind of thing we do with clients at GCS. Share: [envelope icon](mailto:?body=https://thegcstrategies.com/gc-strategies-blog/your-2027-marketing-budget-built-to-flex) GC Strategies LLC. 101 S. Ohio Ave, Floor 2 Sidney, OH 45365 937-660-3913 [info@thegcstrategies.com](mailto:info@thegcstrategies.com)   [linkedin-in icon](https://www.linkedin.com/company/gc-strategies-llc) [Follow us on Facebook](https://www.youtube.com/@GCStrategies) Copyright © 2026 GC Strategies LLC |[Privacy Policy](https://thegcstrategies.com/privacy-policy) ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "Grant Covault", "url" : "https://thegcstrategies.com/gc-strategies-blog/author/grant-covault" }, "dateModified" : "2026-10-13T19:34:07.286Z", "datePublished" : "2026-10-13T19:34:07.000Z", "headline" : "Your 2027 Marketing Budget, Built to Flex", "image" : [ "https://thegcstrategies.com/hubfs/blog_marketing_budget_simple.png" ], "mainEntityOfPage" : { "@id" : "https://thegcstrategies.com/gc-strategies-blog/your-2027-marketing-budget-built-to-flex", "@type" : "WebPage" }, "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "url" : "https://thegcstrategies.com/hubfs/Asset%203.svg" }, "name" : "GC Strategies" } } ``` ```json { "@context" : "http://schema.org", "@type" : "Article", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : [ "Grant Covault" ] }, "datePublished" : "2026-10-13T19:34:07+0000", "description" : "Revamp your marketing budget for 2027 by focusing on flexible planning, prioritizing goals, and understanding revenue sources for sustainable growth.", "headline" : "Your 2027 Marketing Budget, Built to Flex", "image" : "https://39563042.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/39563042/blog_marketing_budget_simple.png", "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "url" : "https://39563042.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/39563042/Asset%203.svg" }, "name" : "GC Strategies" }, "url" : "https://thegcstrategies.com/gc-strategies-blog/your-2027-marketing-budget-built-to-flex" } ```