Advertising budgets are tight, and growth teams are small — but expectations are still high. An increased budget for testing can be even harder to come by when outside economic forces are putting constraints on company spending. Often, marketers can present their cases to stakeholders with the help of data — something digital marketers have no shortage of — but when you’re looking to test new campaigns, channels, or partners, the data to make your case isn’t always there.

The reality is, however, that without sufficient funding, testing can be futile. Meanwhile, the current state of mobile — think ATT — means that you’ll need to test new campaigns, especially on SKAN, if you want to stay competitive. If this rings true to you, we have tips for how to advocate for a bigger test budget.

Questions to ask and answer before setting your budget

Setting a reasonable budget, and using it wisely, requires marketers to be able to plan ahead. Getting answers to a few key questions can help you prepare your ad budget.

• What are the app’s goals for the year? Knowing what milestones your leadership team wants to hit — whether it’s a specific number of users or a specific amount of revenue — will allow you to plan your marketing strategy accordingly. If you have aggressive growth goals, you’ll likely need to branch out beyond your normal channels and consider new growth strategies outside of search and social.
• Will you be launching new features? Apps often launch new features to keep up with user expectations and can provide great marketing fodder. If you have to promote new features on top of normal user acquisition strategies, more budget may be needed.
• Will you explore new markets? One of the biggest growth challenges for app marketers is breaking into new markets. What works in North America is not necessarily translatable to China or South America. Experimenting with new channels, partners, or inventory is common when trying to reach new audiences — and requires a test budget.

Four tips: How to advocate for a bigger test budget

Once you have the answers to the previous questions, you may realize that your current budget just is not sufficient to meet your company’s goals. Asking for more budget, however, is never easy. Before you go to your leadership team to ask for more budget, be sure to consider these four tips.

1. Gather the right data

While you may not have specific campaign data to back up your request for more budget, there should be other data you can draw on. Whether you use the results of a similar campaign or industry data — from case studies, reports, and insights — that suggests a tactic might be right for your app, be sure to gather the right information to bolster your argument.

2. Show the need to scale

Unless your app is brand new, you likely have successful campaigns under your belt. Scaling those campaigns can be harder than you think. For many, scaling spending and growth means trying new channels or partners — often outside of the confines of search and social. Provide evidence that testing new avenues will allow you to scale already successful campaigns to reinforce your request.

3. Compare yourself to the competition

Market research is useful at every step of the marketing journey, and that’s especially true any time you need to make a case for a bigger budget. Do your due diligence to find out what competitors are spending and where. Are the leaders in your vertical using partners and channels you have never thought of? Use that knowledge to make a case for a bigger test budget to find the inventory that works best for you.

4. Track changing expectations

Expectations for marketing departments have a way of morphing over time. Plans set out during January planning sessions are scrapped by Spring when the winds of the market change. Keeping track of documented expectations — and any time your department is asked to do something outside of your original scope — can help you illustrate why your current budget just isn’t sufficient.

Whether you want to A/B test different CTAs or develop entirely new sources of inventory, digital marketing success demands that you keep up with the rapidly changing industry and customer expectations. For this reason, your test budget is more important than you may think. Don’t forget to advocate for more whenever it’s appropriate.