How to secure budget for Marketing Experiments in B2B?
“How did you finagle a budget for those adventurous brand campaigns?” I get asked this question often. For many marketing leaders, especially in the B2B space, securing a budget for experimental and unconventional campaigns can feel like an uphill battle. The good news? It’s not impossible, and the key lies in strategic planning and foresight.
Think Preventive, Not Reactive
Just like preventive medicine is considered the best approach to health, budgeting for marketing should follow the same principle. Instead of waiting for opportunities to arise and then scrambling to justify the cost, you can build a cushion in your budget proactively. During each budget cycle, I made it a point to allocate 5-10% of my marketing budget to a line item explicitly titled “Marketing Experiments.”
Interestingly, my team affectionately referred to this budget as “Udi’s crazy ideas.” But as playful as that may sound, it was a deliberate strategy to ensure we had funds ready for bold, creative, and sometimes risky campaigns that could potentially pay off big.
Why Marketing Teams Need an Experiments Budget
No marketing channel remains lucrative forever. To stay ahead of the curve, marketing teams need to constantly explore new channels and innovative ideas. An experiments budget isn’t just about enabling creativity; it’s about future-proofing your strategy. Today’s high-performing campaigns might become tomorrow’s stale tactics.
This dedicated budget also allows you to act on unexpected opportunities that pop up during the fiscal year—those that weren’t foreseeable during the initial budgeting process. For example, industry events you weren’t aware of when setting your budget might emerge, and having an experiments budget gives you the flexibility to jump in without having to secure additional funds.
Gaining Executive Buy-In for Experiments
Getting approval from your CFO or CEO can be the trickiest part, but it’s all about framing your request correctly. I always assured leadership that these experiments were treated as small-scale pilots. If an idea performed well, we’d allocate more resources for it in the next cycle. If it didn’t deliver results, we wouldn’t repeat it. This approach mitigates risk and ensures that the experiments don’t feel like reckless spending.
Most CFOs and CEOs are actually more open to this logic than you’d think, because it creates a structured yet flexible budget cushion. This cushion can be used for brand investments, impromptu opportunities, or even as a small emergency fund when things don’t go as planned.
Skipping the “Budget” Argument
One of the biggest advantages of pre-allocating a budget for experiments is that you can bypass the usual budget justification discussions. When the opportunity arises, the focus shifts from "How will we fund this?" to "Why is this experiment a good idea, and what impact could it have?" It streamlines the decision-making process and allows for more agile marketing execution.
Examples of Creative Experimentation
Over the years, many of our bold brand campaigns were funded through this line item. From buying a massive billboard wishing our nearby office employees a great day to deploying branded food-delivery robots to surprise prospects with pizza (yes, we tried that!), having this budget made it easier to take calculated risks that led to significant brand visibility and engagement.
Conclusion: Build Flexibility Into Your Budget
In B2B marketing, where every dollar is scrutinized, it’s crucial to balance the need for consistency with the flexibility to experiment. By explicitly allocating a small portion of your budget for experimental campaigns, you create a sandbox where creative ideas can flourish without derailing your overall strategy. Ultimately, it’s about future-proofing your marketing, staying agile, and keeping your brand ahead of the curve.
The next time someone asks you how you fund your most adventurous ideas, you’ll have a straightforward answer: budget for it from the start.
