Your brand is the beating heart of your business. It dictates the way you look, feel, and communicate with your audience. It’s how you demonstrate your brand values and stay consistent across channels.

Having a strong, consistent brand will make you instantly recognizable while building long-term trust and customer loyalty. From tone of voice (TOV) and messaging right the way through to your logo and color palette, the way you present yourself will have a direct impact on your business’s ongoing success.

But, what’s the best way to showcase your assets and earn brand recognition across channels? The short answer: brand asset management.

Developing a cohesive brand asset management system will ensure you can access your most important marketing materials exactly when you need them. Doing so will save time, boost productivity, and improve the impact of your campaigns. 

In this blog, we will cover:

• What are brand assets?
• What is brand asset management?
• Why is effective brand management important?
• 3 essential brand asset management tips
• How to make your brand more recognizable

What are brand assets?

Brand assets are any material that represents your brand’s visual identity, values, and communication style. These assets are what you use to promote your brand or bring your marketing campaigns to life, and include:

• Your brand name
• Your logos (usually in multiple styles or formats)
• Branded artwork
• Color palettes
• Graphics 
• Product packaging
• Slogans, hooks or taglines
• Songs or sound bites
• Videos 
• Brand or TOV guidelines 
• Marketing materials (business cards, letterheads, and collateral)
• Templates (e.g., content for webinars, press releases, and sales videos)

Who manages the assets now? Your marketing team, design, brand, across departments? Who’s responsible for it, updates it, distributes it  etc?

BAM vs DAM: what’s the difference?

Your brand assets are one of the most valuable elements of your business. Not only are they for internal use (think marketing teams, sales executives, brand managers, and customer success teams), but freelancers and agencies will also use them for PR purposes or campaign collaboration.

In addition to brand asset management, you may have heard of digital asset management (DAM). Knowing the key differences between these two systems is essential to creating the right system for your business.

BAM is essentially a branch of DAM. While DAM is broader and based on creating an efficient system for accessing or distribution of every digital file or asset within the business, BAM focuses on branding only.

Your BAM processes into your DAM system, but exists to ensure that your brand assets are accessible, applied correctly, and used consistently across channels. Certain assets within your BAM system may also be print-based rather than digital-only.

Listen to our podcast with Jason Byer, Marketing Manager of Crowdspring to find out ‘Why is Branding Important?’

What is brand asset management?

Brand asset management (BAM) is the art of making the storage, management, and distribution of your key brand assets efficient and effective.

With an accessible system, you can quickly and easily find your most important brand assets. Rather than scouring through folders, you can locate them with ease for use in your content, campaigns, and communications.

In addition to improving the way you manage your assets, BAM is also about ensuring they’re used in a way that not only preserves the integrity of your brand, but makes a positive impact across platforms. 

Why is effective brand asset management important?

Did you know? According to research from Campaign Asia and Forrester, only 15% of brand assets are truly distinctive and make a real  impact. By creating an efficient BAM system, you’ll likely make better use of your best brand assets.

BAM is an essential part of sustainable marketing success as it will protect your brand’s identity and ensure your messaging is 100% clear and consistent. Here are additional reasons why focusing on your BAM strategy is important:

• Save time: Effective BAM will ensure your entire team can find exactly what they’re looking for quickly and easily. Having a more efficient way of locating and using your assets will save time, boost productivity, and empower your team to place their efforts into more creative or strategic tasks.
• Reduce the possibility of errors: When your team is stretched and your assets are hard to find, mistakes can happen. For instance, you could use the wrong piece of messaging for a campaign or end up with a grainy image that damages your social media engagement. But with a BAM strategy, your team will have the time and resources to make informed choices and check over your assets in detail before signing off.
• Protect your brand’s integrity: Maintain consistency by making it easier to manage marketing assets using a clear framework on how to use them within campaigns or communications. Always remember that your imagery and content make a positive impact across channels and by strengthening your brand you strengthen your reputation.

3 essential brand asset management tips

Let’s look at tips on how to successfully create a BAM system – starting with a detailed audit.

1. Audit your current brand assets

To make improvements to your current BAM system (or lack of one), you’ll need to perform an audit to see what you have and where it’s all located.

Auditing may be a time-consuming process, but it will be worth it in the end. Work through one type of asset at a time (logos, videos, imagery, copy, etc.) to see what you have that’s still valuable to your brand communications.

Delete anything that’s off-brand or surplus to requirement and label the brand assets you want to keep clearly and logically. Once labelled, you should place everything into one central location, with each type of asset segmented into a dedicated sub folder. And always back up your files!

Once you and your team know exactly what you have and where it’s located, you’ll be able to store and find your assets far more easily.

2. Refresh or create your brand asset guidelines

Another essential part of BAM is knowing how to use your assets in a way that makes your brand shine. It’s not enough to organize your assets and make them accessible – you need  to guide people on how to implement them in your marketing communications.

A recognizable brand has a striking aesthetic, an original tone of voice, and presents the same way across every channel, from website and landing pages to social media, mobile app, and beyond. To ensure this happens, you need to create a guide that outlines how to handle your brand assets.

You should explain how to locate your files, as well as how to store, label, and document them. It’s also vital that you give guidance on the ‘dos and don’ts’ of handling your assets. These ‘dos and don’ts’ could cover the storage formats you should or shouldn’t use, visual dimension or aspect ratios, rules on video captioning, and ways to approach your branded copy. 

Your BAM guideline checklist…

• I’ve offered a clear framework on how to locate, store, and label files
• I’ve shared our brand mission, values, and principles
• I’ve added definitive ‘dos and don’ts’ to using our brand assets in marketing comms
• I’ve included preferred dimensions, ratios, and rules for using imagery
• I’ve covered video creation and editing rules
• I’ve shared advice on how to represent our brand voice with written communications

Tip: Download our brand style elements template and keep track of all every essential element of your brand style, including fonts, imagery, color values, and social media handles.

3. Invest in brand asset management software

Armed with a consolidated space for your files and clear guidelines, you’ll be in a far better position. But, if you’d like to make your system even more efficient, you could invest in a dedicated BAM platform.

A good BAM platform offers a central interface for storing, sourcing, and formatting your files with ease. Many leading BAM tools also have automation features that can arrange, optimize, and monitor brand assets on your behalf. If you have a scaling business that manages brand assets across multiple platforms, working with a reliable BAM software is a good idea. Here are five recommendations for your consideration:

• ioMoVo
• Acquia DAM
• Artwork Flow
• Brandy
• Sparkfive

You can use marketing automation tools to streamline certain aspects of your campaigns and ensure your brand assets make a real impact with your audience.

How to make your brand more recognizable

Developing a clear BAM strategy will improve internal efficiency and ensure your messaging hits the mark. But to make your brand truly recognizable, there are two methods you can adopt to leave a lasting mark in the minds of consumers.

Create synergy between your visuals and brand messaging

I’ve used the term ‘consistency’ a lot in this guide – and for good reason. If your visuals and messaging don’t align across all of your communications, it’s unlikely that people will form a strong association with your brand.

The best brands also create a strong synergy between their visuals and messaging. For example, they use their brand color palette across every marketing channel and ensure visuals and communications represent the brand’s visual identity. 

Taking measures to match your brand’s tone of voice with its visual aesthetic will give people a true understanding of your brand’s personality and values.

Take Cleo, for example. As the ‘world’s first financial assistant’, Cleo is a fintech brand on a mission to make money management accessible to the digital generation. The forward-thinking brand has clean, modern visuals that match its clear, conversational, and ‘cut to the chase’ tone.

Cleo branding example

Cleo’s memorable ““Money talks. Cleo talks back” tagline also represents its approachable nature and the platform’s conversational AI-powered features.

The bottom line? Whether you’re traditional, modern, playful, lively or empathetic, make sure your logo, visuals, and copy work in harmony to represent who you are and who you’re talking to.

Position your brand to stand out

The right positioning will give you a clear edge over your competitors and bring your target audience closer to your brand. Effective brand positioning will also provide a definitive direction on how and where to utilize your assets to create maximum impact.

Patagonia does an excellent job of positioning itself as a leader in sustainable clothing and environmental responsibility. Not only does it produce sustainable clothes, but the brand’s visuals and communications demonstrate how Patagonia lives its brand values through sustainable marketing. It also regularly invites its audience to be a part of the change.

Patagonia branding example

The brand’s dedicated Climate Goals landing page is a prime example of how Patagonia manifests as an environmental leader in its field. It’s this effective brand positioning that makes Patagonia instantly recognizable, resulting in a continual rate of commercial growth.

Here are some quick tips on how to position your brand and make it more recognizable:

1. Understand your key audience segments and their specific pain points so you can share your solution. Effective audience listening will help you uncover key insights about your ideal customer personas (ICPs).
2. Identify your unique value proposition (UVP) and build your messaging around it. Speak directly to your consumers and avoid being everything to everyone.
3. Make sure your TOV and visuals match who you are and how you’re positioning yourself in the market.
4. Tell brand stories that bring your products to life and create a genuine connection with your audience.

Tip: Read our guide to brand storytelling in the digital age and create communications that are bold, authentic, and stand out from the crowd.

Advance your digital marketing career with us

If you’re looking to move up the career ladder or simply want to upgrade your skills, DMI’s Postgraduate Diploma in Digital Marketing can be a game changer. You will gain a deep understanding of digital marketing concepts to improve customer experiences and make data-driven decisions, leverage search marketing and demand generation to drive traffic and leads, know how to develop a business strategy and master analytics and planning.

Digital marketing relies on great content! But it’s not enough to create content that gets likes on TikTok or sees thousands of blog impressions. 

Great content needs to be relevant, targeted, creative, persuasive, valuable, and informative – and that’s a challenge for many marketers that are time and resource poor even with the help of AI copywriting tools.  

So how can you create and share content that makes an impact not only with your customers, but to your KPIs and bottom line?

In this blog, we explore the nuts and bolts of content marketing to help you craft content that serves a purpose and performs by covering:

• What is content marketing?  
• What is the purpose of content marketing?
• How can you develop a content plan or strategy?
• How can you apply funnel techniques to your content?
• What is a buyer persona and how can you use it to craft content?
• 10 expert tips for making great content
• How can you effectively distribute your content?

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is the creation and sharing of content in different formats such as videos, blogs, emails, and social media posts, to build interest in a brand, product, or service.

It is becoming increasingly important for marketers to understand content marketing and to know how to use it effectively. The rise of ad blockers, algorithms, private social media (where users can connect and share information in a private, invitation-only group such as WhatsApp or Discord), and many other factors is increasingly limiting our ability to reach consumers. 

However, content marketing can cut through these barriers, because it is centered on creating written and visual assets that have a genuine and intrinsic value to people.

What is the purpose of content marketing?

The purpose of content marketing is to drive  inbound customer engagement and organic searches (using search engine optimization) from a defined audience. It aims to influence behavior at every touchpoint with data-driven storytelling aligned to business objectives

Content is strategically created or curated, and distributed through key digital channels including owned media, paid media, and earned media  to attract customers to your website or custom landing pages.

This engagement can then be nurtured to convert prospects into valuable customers. 

What is inbound marketing?

But what exactly is inbound marketing? Well, it’s a strategy where brands use content marketing to attract customers towards them. 

The key driver of inbound marketing is consumer intent as potential customers actively seek out a brand’s content. As a result, consumers are more engaged and open to taking action than if the brand were to communicate with them when they are not actively interested or just communicate sales messages.

What is outbound marketing?

Outbound marketing, on the other hand, is when the brand pushes  messages out to as many people as it can within a target audience that’s believed to be a good match for its product or service. For example, a brand might use a social media platform such as LinkedIn to target people in a certain profession or role.

Of course, consumers might not be interested in the product at that particular time! So outbound advertising is generally less effective than inbound marketing at driving action.

How can you develop a content marketing plan or strategy?

Content marketing drives valuable search traffic and social engagement. These in turn can increase the number of valuable actions taken by your audience.

To create a successful content-driven  campaign, you first need a content plan!  This helps to set out the objectives and scope of your project and keep everything on track while providing a roadmap outlining the different aspects of your campaign.

The content strategy can be referred to when queries arise and adapted to suit the changing needs of the campaign and audience. It also ensures content is developed for purpose by:

• Defining objectives, KPIs, budgets, and audience personas
• Capturing the brand or campaign story
• Detailing production pieces, such as formats and timings
• Outlining distribution channels
• Measuring the performance of content

When you’re developing a content plan or strategy it’s worth considering the following:

• Scope of production: Identify the type and quantity of assets and formats you plan to deliver.
• Timeline: When will you deliver each part of the strategy? Plan your timeline carefully and ensure you’ve allowed enough time for each stage of production.
• Budget and production resources: What is required in terms of money and people to deliver your content efficiently?
• Upstream dependencies: What has to happen for the strategy to progress? Try to identify any potential issues in advance and put a solution or alternative plan into place.
• Downstream dependencies: What must the strategy deliver for something else to progress?
• Risks: What could happen to derail the plan? Factor in some contingency time for unexpected delays or complications.

It takes time to plan and execute a content marketing strategy effectively because there are many moving parts. So you need to be flexible and ensure your strategy is agile to adapt in response to changing business objectives, KPIs, and performance.

” Only 29% of marketers whose organizations have a documented content strategy say it’s extremely or very effective “– Content Marketing Institute

How can you apply funnel techniques for your content?

You can use the conversion funnel as a guide when planning your content marketing strategy. This enables you to map your content to key decision points in the consumer journey and address their needs and provide solutions. 

The conversion funnel helps you understand the consumer journey by tracking the different steps a typical consumer would complete on the way to taking a valuable action, such as a purchase, sign up, or contact request. 

Content marketers should use funnel insights and knowledge to drive more valuable customer engagement and create data capture content to drive conversions.

Let’s break down each stage of the funnel along with the relevant content types for each one. 

Top of the Funnel (TOFU): Awareness

The aim of TOFU content is to attract attention, educate, and generate interest to an audience seeking solutions or information. 

Content types for this stage are:

• SEO-optimized blog posts
• Infographics
• Social media content
• Podcasts / YouTube videos
• Interactive quizzes
• Webinars (intro-level)

Middle of the Funnel (MOFU): Consideration

At this stage of the funnel, you should create content to build trust, differentiate your offering, and nurture consumers. The audience for MOFU are aware of solutions and comparing options. 

Content types for this stage are:

• Case studies 
• Whitepapers/e-books
• Product comparison guides
• Email drip campaigns or automated trigger workflows
• Mid-funnel webinars
• Checklists, toolkits and templates

Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU): Decision-making

BOFU content is focused on converting, closing, and onboarding to an audience that’s ready to choose a solution and is evaluating a purchase. 

Content types for this stage are:

• Demos or free trials
• Testimonials and reviews
• Sales decks
• Personalized emails
• Onboarding videos

Retention (after purchase)

It’s important not to forget about a customer after they make a purchase or conversion. You won’t survive as a brand if you only focus on converting new customers, it’s just as important to nurture existing ones to build customer loyalty and grow!

Types of content to use at this stage are:

• How-to guides and tutorials
• Community or social groups (such as Facebook or Reddit) 
• Customer or client success stories
• Customer loyalty programs
• Product update newsletters
• User-generated content (UGC)

It might also be worth creating re-engagement content such as an email campaign or special offer for people who’ve dropped out at different stages of the consumer journey to entice them back.

What is a buyer persona and how can you use it to craft content?

One tactic that content marketers can use to develop a successful content strategy is to develop buyer personas.

A buyer persona is a snapshot of your ideal customer. You need to know as much as you can about the behaviors and attitudes of your ideal customer, in relation to the objectives you have set for your content strategy. 

The benefits of creating personas are: 

• Improved targeting: Personas help you to adjust and focus your content. This helps to ensure that it is strategically positioned to target consumers who are likely to be interested in it and convey your message to the right audience at the right time. They also enable you to perform market research, targeted advertising, usability testing, and keyword research more efficiently.
• Decide on the best content format: Personas give you the information and perspective you need in order to make objective decisions about how to craft your brand messages through the most consumed and widely accepted formats. These include short-form videos, blogs, webinars, or social media posts. This helps you to create compelling content that meets each persona’s needs.
• Aid discovery: Personas help you discover insights into your audience’s behavior. Where are they having conversations? What topics are they interested in? If you distribute tailored content to where your audience is active, you can leverage their online behaviors to the maximum effect.

So, when creating personas, it’s important to think about: 

• Objectives: What are your ideal customers looking to achieve by interacting with your business? How many competitors will they consider? What information is pertinent to their decision?
• Location: Where are your personas from? Where are they based? 
• Demographics: What age group are they in? What is their marital status?
• Job or role: What’s their economic position or job role? What industry do they work in?
• Platforms: Which online platforms do they use? Where are the conversations happening with your target audience?
• Devices: What devices do your personas use to access the internet? What kind of connection do they have? 
• Purchase behaviors: What steps do they take when considering a purchase?
• Interests: What topics are they interested in? What issues are they trying to solve? How do these issues impact their lives and how can your brand help? 

The best way to gather information and data for your personas is to look at the information you already have. 

Analyze your Google Analytics data to find out about the top-performing channels, and look at social media analytics to see what content resonates along with social listening.  Also use audience listening to monitor brand mentions and conversations across digital channels. 

You can even use ChatGPT to help create buyer personas by using the right prompts and insights. Check out this walkthrough with DMI expert Will Francis to find out how. 

10 expert tips for making great content

Once you’re armed with a content marketing strategy and have an in-depth understanding of your audience, it’s time to craft some great content!

So let’s look at 10 expert tips to help you create content that engages and converts your target audience. 

1) Create content pillars or themes

When you’re creating content for a target audience, it should be focused on key topics or themes that cohort (target audience) is interested in. By developing discrete and focused content pillars, you can link content together to provide information at every stage of the funnel and become an authority in that area. 

For example, if you produce plant-based milk like Oatly, then your content pillars could be nutrition and wellness, plant-based living and sustainability, and plant-based recipes.  

2) Tailor content to each channel

Each channel requires attention to detail when it comes to content. For example, what you would send in an email wouldn’t work as a paid ad. Consumers can tell when content reads strangely or comes across as inauthentic (the cut-and-paste method), so you need to tailor content to each platform. 

That doesn’t mean starting from scratch each time, however. It just means tweaking content so it suits the channel. The same goes for each social media network – what works on a YouTube channel won’t necessarily translate on LinkedIn.  

3) Update old content

Marketers often find that, over time, top-performing content sees a drop in performance. That doesn’t mean that the topic isn’t of interest anymore. It could just be due to content seeming dated (statistics are particularly evident in this case) or it being harder to find as it’s dropped down the search rankings. 

When this happens, don’t panic. You don’t have to always create new content. Reinvigorate existing content so it’s more up to date or relevant to your audience. Neil Patel research found that updating content can have as much as a 106% increase in traffic.  

4) Conduct original research

As marketers need to compete with AI-generated search results such as Google’s AI Overviews, it’s getting harder to feature on the first page of the SERP. Original research can help set your content apart by bringing something unique and valuable to the table for your audience. 

By including original research such as whitepaper key findings or survey or poll results, you can feed into Google’s E-E-A-T algorithm (which is used to assess the quality of content and play a role in where it ranks). It’s also worth including quotes from subject matter experts that your company works with to build credibility and authority.  

5) Write for humans and search engines

When you create content, think about the person reading it. Regardless of whether you’re a B2B or B2C business, you should create content that excites and engages. So, aim to use clear and conversational language that avoids jargon or complicated terminology, unless your audience expects it.

SEO also plays a part here to get your content found, so consider using intent-driven keywords, headers, meta tags, and schema where appropriate. Also prioritize readability by using short paragraphs, bullet points, and strong hierarchical headlines.

For many customers – particularly the younger generations – platforms such as YouTube and TikTok are becoming search engines. So, when posting content, think about search intent and what people are looking for.

6) Lock down your brand tone and voice

One of the most effective ways to stand out as a brand and from competitors is to nail a brand tone and voice. A unique brand voice can help people recognize your content when it comes up in their feed or into their inbox. 

Take drinks brand Innocent, which is well known for using humor and an informal tone in its content across platforms. By keeping that tone consistent, the brand is instantly recognizable to consumers – alongside its simple logo and use of color. 

Innocent’s IG post

7) Tell a story

Try to make your content tell a story – whether that’s about your brand (values, ethos, and so on), your customers (what they like or who they are), or your products and services. You can do this by using narratives or including real examples, or mini-case studies, to make content memorable.

Along with the tone and voice, humanize your brand story so people know what it stands for. Tap into what makes a brand unique so that you can create content that stands out, and try to inject some personality or empathy.

8) Use visuals

Visuals are a big part of content. That could be an impactful video, a powerful image, or an ad carousel to reveal a story or message. Try to incorporate visuals alongside content, so it adds value. Don’t just include a visual for the sake of it! 

Visuals can also be a great way to break up text, particularly in long-content such as blog articles or ebooks. Always try to stay on brand when it comes to your visuals or align the visual you use with the content and message. 

9) Leverage AI

Use AI to help you brainstorm and develop content, but remember that anything you produce with AI needs to be proofread and checked before you share it. 

Tools like ChatGPT, Jasper, or Copilot are great for content ideation, optimization, and outlines. You can also use them to edit or provide suggestions on how to improve your content and provide alternative perspectives if you’re looking to create content for different personas. 

Here’s a walkthrough on how to use Google NotebookLM, which you can ask for a given task and the information is not shared with the greater AI-verse. ▶

Join for FREE to access this video.

10) Repurpose content

Don’t forget that you can always repurpose content that works with your audience. With so little time and so much content to produce, it’s worth looking at other ways to repackage content that performs. 

For example, you can turn a top-performing blog into:

• LinkedIn carousel
• Email workflow or campaign
• Short video script
• Infographic

When it comes to running a successful pay-per-click (PPC) campaign, budgeting isn’t just a number — it’s your strategy in action. 

A PPC budget outlines how much you’re willing to spend to get clicks, impressions, or conversions from your digital ads. It dictates how your ads perform, how long they run, and how far your message can go.

PPC budgeting is a core component of any campaign, whether you’re just getting started or optimizing at scale.

Without a clear PPC budget in place (as part of your digital marketing budget) you risk overspending on underperforming ads, or worse, cutting high-potential campaigns short.

In this blog, we will cover:

• How PPC Pricing Works
• Factors that Influence Your PPC Budget
• How to Calculate Your PPC Budget
• PPC Budget Benchmarks by Industry
• Tools and Platforms to Help Set and Monitor PPC Budgets
• Optimizing and Adjusting Your Budget Over Time
• Common Budgeting Mistakes to Avoid

How PPC Pricing Works

PPC budget management starts with understanding how you pay for ads. There are three common pricing models to be aware of:

• Cost-Per-Click (CPC): You pay each time someone clicks on your ad. This is the most widely used model, especially for search-based platforms like Google Ads.
• Cost-Per-Thousand-Impressions (CPM): You pay for every 1,000 views (impressions) of your ad. CPM is common in brand awareness campaigns and display advertising.
• Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA): You only pay when a user completes a desired action, such as a purchase or sign-up. This model is typically used in performance-driven campaigns.

Your actual cost under these models is largely influenced by ad auction systems, like those used by Google Ads and Meta. These platforms weigh factors such as your bid, ad quality, and relevance to determine whether your ad is shown and how much you pay.

This ability to optimize costs while staying competitive is a vital skill in digital advertising. In fact, understanding how ad pricing works is one of the key competencies expected of any PPC specialist.

Factors That Influence Your PPC Budget

Not all PPC campaigns are built the same and neither are their budgets. Your ideal PPC budget depends on a variety of factors, from your campaign goals to the competitiveness of your industry. Understanding these variables is key to building a budget that supports performance without burning through spend.

1. Campaign Goals: Awareness vs. Conversion

What are you trying to achieve? A brand awareness campaign on YouTube or Meta may prioritize impressions and reach, making CPM the preferred pricing model. 

On the other hand, a conversion-driven campaign (e.g., sales or sign-ups) will require a more CPC or CPA-focused budget, often with higher costs but also with more measurable Return on Investment (ROI). 

The clearer your goal, the more precisely you can allocate your ad spend.

2. Industry Competitiveness

Some industries, like legal services, insurance, or finance, have higher average CPCs due to intense competition for high-value keywords. Niche markets may cost less per click but could also have limited search volume. 

3. Target Keywords and Location

Your keyword strategy has a direct impact on your PPC budget. High-intent, high-volume keywords tend to cost more, especially in competitive sectors. 

Similarly, location targeting matters. Advertising in major cities or high-demand regions typically drives up bid prices. 

4. Platforms

Each platform comes with its own pricing model, audience behavior, and learning curve.

Google Ads offers high intent but often higher CPCs. When we talk about PPC, we often associate it with Google but you may also try other paid media platforms such as Meta (Facebook/Instagram). Though it is a social media-first platform, brands have been successful using their paid media feature which is ideal for awareness and remarketing.

Another social media site where you can run PPC campaigns is TikTok known for reaching younger audiences with lower initial costs but requires creative-intensive formats. There’s also Amazon Ads which cater to users close to purchase and are highly competitive in eCommerce.

Your platform mix should reflect your audience, objectives, and content capabilities and this will shape your budget strategy accordingly.

5. Ad Quality and Landing Page Experience

One of the most overlooked budget factors is ad quality. Google and other platforms use Quality Score or Relevance Score to influence your ad cost. 

The better your ad copy, targeting, and landing page experience, the less you’ll pay per click, even if your competition is bidding higher.

How to Calculate Your PPC Budget

One of the most effective ways to set a PPC budget is by working backwards from your revenue goals. Start with how much you want to earn, then calculate how much you need to spend to get there.

Here’s a simple formula to guide you:

Ad Budget = (Target Revenue ÷ Conversion Rate) × Cost Per Click (CPC)

Scenario: You Want to Increase E-commerce Sales by 10% Next Month

So, how can you calculate your PPC budget? Do you need a PPC budget calculator? Do you need to pace your budget? 

Let’s explore these topics using an example:

• Your current monthly revenue: $50,000
• Target increase: 10% → $5,000 in new revenue
• Average order value (AOV): $100
• Website conversion rate: 2%
• Estimated CPC (Cost Per Click): $1.50

Step-by-Step Calculation

Determine how many new orders you need

• $5,000 target revenue ÷ $100 AOV = 50 new sales

Calculate how many clicks you need to get 50 sales

• 50 ÷ 0.02 (2% conversion rate) = 2,500 clicks

Estimate how much it will cost to get those clicks

• 2,500 × $1.50 CPC = $3,750

Result: You would need to invest approximately $3,750 in PPC next month to achieve a 10% increase in e-commerce revenue, assuming your AOV and conversion rate stay constant.

This is also where ROI becomes essential. Your pay-per-click budget should be set in a way that ensures you’re generating more revenue than you’re spending. 

For sustainable growth, calculate your desired ROI and adjust your ad spend accordingly, especially if you have a clear handle on your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). 

If your LTV is high, you can afford to invest more upfront to acquire quality leads and long-term customers.

PPC Budget Benchmarks by Industry

Understanding industry-specific benchmarks is crucial for setting realistic budgets and expectations. By knowing the PPC budget by industry, you’ll know if you’re falling behind your peers. 

Average PPC campaign costs can vary significantly across industries and platforms, according to the 2025 data from Wordstream:

Tools and Platforms to Help Set and Monitor PPC Budgets

Choosing the right tools can make or break your PPC budget strategy. 

From estimating CPC to forecasting spend and tracking ROI across the funnel, here are essential PPC budget management tools and platforms to help you plan and manage your ad spend effectively.

Google Ads Keyword Planner

Google Ads Keyword Planner is a free tool that helps you research keywords, forecast search volume, and estimate cost-per-click (CPC) for your chosen terms. It’s essential for building budget models and understanding how much you’ll need to bid to stay competitive.

You can filter by location, language, and search networks to get hyper-relevant insights. Practice with DMI’s free Google Ads Planner. 

SEMrush & Ahrefs CPC Estimators

Both SEMrush and Ahrefs provide CPC estimators that let you analyze keyword competitiveness, potential traffic volume, and cost trends. These tools are ideal for benchmarking CPC by industry or region and refining your keyword strategy based on actual data, not guesswork.

Paid Media Budget Forecasting Tool (DMI Toolkit)

This paid media forecasting tool from the Digital Marketing Institute allows you to model various budget scenarios based on campaign goals, conversion rates, and average CPC. It’s perfect for planning spend across Google, Meta, or LinkedIn, helping marketers visualize potential outcomes before launching a campaign.

CRM Integrations (HubSpot, Salesforce)

CRMs like HubSpot and Salesforce allow for end-to-end tracking of campaign performance. By integrating your ad platforms with a CRM, you can measure cost-per-lead, sales pipeline influence, and lifetime value, giving you full-funnel visibility to optimize spend where it matters most.

How to Optimize and Adjust Your Budget Over Time

Setting a PPC budget is just the beginning. Constant optimization is what separates good campaigns from great ones. The most successful advertisers don’t just set and forget. They review, refine, and redirect based on performance and business goals.

Use tools like Google Ads’ performance dashboards and GA4 to compare performance week over week or month over month (there’s also advanced features worth looking at). Look at both micro and macro trends — are conversions dropping due to creative fatigue, or is competition increasing?

It is also imperative to do A/B testing. Test different ad headlines, CTAs, landing pages, and even platforms to see what resonates best with your target audience. It’s often the small tweaks, such as adjusting ad copy or swapping an image, that unlock dramatic improvements in conversion rates. 

You can use our A/B testing toolkit to get a structured approach to designing, executing and analyzing A/B tests. 

Modern platforms use AI to improve PPC campaigns. These strategies use machine learning to adjust your bids automatically based on real-time data like device, location, time of day, and audience behavior.

There are also platforms like RevealBot, Marin Software, and Optmyzr that automate budgeting at scale. These tools let you set rules to reallocate budget based on real-time performance all without manual oversight.