Planning and budgeting against baseline performance

Key time frames aren't always all about testing new channels, it’s just as much about ensuring you’re maximizing your existing channels and running those at scale.

The way to do this is by doubling down on tactics that are working and cutting under-performers. All to make sure you’re able to manage against diminishing returns when you’re at max budgets.

And by extension, determine the maximum spend per channel, through both a bottoms-up and top-down budgeting process.

Please see below for steps on how to accomplish:

1. Establishing baseline performance on the channel + tactic level
2. Scaling and cutting budget based on baseline performance
3. Determining optimal budgets per funnel position (top vs bottom of funnel)

1. Establish baseline performance:

• Set a baseline CPA or ROAS on the channel or tactic level
• Ex: Brand vs non-brand paid search, prospecting vs retargeting paid social

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Choosing a control period

Before you begin any analysis you need to first choose your control period.

This is the time period you will compare performance during the sales/heavy-up period against.

Consider the following when choosing your control period:

• Choose a time period without any significant changes to your marketing mix (heavy-ups, new channel launched)
• For sales with a longer ramp time (i.e. BFCM) - you may want to choose two control time periods (one pre-marketing heavy up and one during heavy up)

How to establish baseline performance in Rockerbox:

• Using the UI: in Analytics > Reports, filter for the relevant channels and drill down to the tier you will use for your benchmark. For example, if you are benchmarking on the tactic level and have tactic on your third tier in Rockerbox, filter for tiers 1-3.

The below example shows benchmark performance across Facebook tactics for a given date range

• Using Rockerbox Reporting: exports a Buckets Breakdown report for a given date range and pivot out by the desired level of granularity for calculating CPA and ROAS.

2. Optimize and budget against baseline performance:

• For under-performing channels, tactics, or campaigns: cut spend by decreasing bids or budgets against placements or channel that perform below benchmark.
• For strong-performing channels, tactics, or campaigns: scale spend by increasing bids or budgets against placements or channels that perform above benchmark.

How to do this in Rockerbox:

• Using the UI: within a given channel or tactic, filter down to more granular details to reveal placements that are over or underperforming compared to your benchmark. Across channels, filter for multiple channels and increase the budget on high performers, or decrease budget on low performers

In the below example, you might cut spend from the top campaign which is performing lower than your Facebook remarketing benchmark and move that spend into the bottom campaign which is performing higher than your Facebook remarketing benchmark.

• Using Rockerbox Reporting: compare baseline performance both within and across channels by pivoting the data, filtering for desired channels, and comparing performance against a benchmark.

3. Determining Optimal Budgets per Funnel Position (Top vs Bottom of Funnel):

Optimal budgets by funnel position will be directly contingent on if your goals are focused on top-line volume and revenue vs efficiency.