3 things B2B marketing leaders should consider before they lock in their 2027 budget
As the end of Q3 approaches quickly, budget season is upon us. This time of year often creates stress for marketers, but it’s also a season of promise. This is your chance to reflect on this year’s successes and failures, think big for next year, and clearly prioritize where you want to spend your money.
While you should be planning against specific goals and landmark programs in 2027, for B2B marketing teams, flexibility matters as much as planning. Long sales cycles, complex buying committees, and changing go-to-market priorities can make it difficult to know exactly where every marketing dollar will deliver the most value a year from now.
Your executive team will expect a thorough accounting of where you’ll spend department money, so leaving your budget open-ended isn’t an option. Here's a simple method for balancing fixed and shifting priorities across three key areas: people, tools and technology, and program spend.
1. People first
Executives will ask about the campaigns, activations, and events you’re planning for next year, but before you add a single new program or platform, ask whether you have the right talent to hit your growth goals.
Questions to ask:
Looking at 2026, how did your team handle their workload? Were workloads reasonable, or is your team feeling burned out? Did you try something new this year that didn’t perform as you hoped because no one on the team had the skills to pull it off?
If leadership is asking you to invest in new areas, do you have team members who can take on that work with the experience they need to succeed?
If you determine you need more support but can't open a new role, fractional talent can plug the gap without adding permanent headcount. And if your strategy depends on new capabilities, whether that's AI, analytics, or channel expansion, budget for the training now, not after you've already committed to the work.
2. Tools that earn their keep
As AI continues to shift the MarTech landscape, you may be tempted to invest in new tools. But before you expand your tech stack, start with an audit.
Questions to ask:
Are you paying for overlapping tools?
Are there platforms you bought but never fully used?
Was there something your team couldn't accomplish last year because you didn't have the right technology?
Are you using all of the capabilities available in your existing tools?
The right marketing tech is critical for program success, but if you overspend (especially on tools with overlapping capabilities), you’re losing money for marketing programs.
After your audit, if you determine anything is underperforming, consider replacing it. If you see a clear gap, now’s the time to look at augmenting your toolset.
3. Program spend built on real performance
Allocating your program budget can feel overwhelming if you don’t have a system for evaluating where to cut, where to double-down, and where to add. To start, look at the last 18 months, not just last year, and note what performed and what didn’t. Based on your goals and your team’s capabilities, you can decide where you want to focus your investment.
When thinking about how to allocate across existing programs and new ones, here’s a formula that works well:
75% on what's proven to work: Your high-performing programs and campaigns deserve investment. Keep money here and expand programs as budget allows.
10–15% on fixing what underperformed: Sometimes important programs underperform. Rather than removing them from your plan, look for ways to rework or optimize. This might look like a new vendor, a new approach or more support.
10–15% on new bets: If your goal is growth, you’ll need to try some new things next year. A small experimental allocation will help you vet them in 2027 and scale the ones that pay off in 2028 and beyond.
How much should my company spend on marketing?
A common rule of thumb is 7–12% of annual revenue, with aggressive growth goals generally pushing toward the higher end.
Your allocation should ultimately tie back to your business goals. If you're entering a new market, launching a major initiative or pursuing aggressive growth, your marketing investment may need to increase accordingly.
Where to lean in for 2027
So, where should you put your money in 2027?
Community marketing, user-generated content (UGC) and authentic organic social should continue to play an important role. As AI-generated content becomes more prevalent, human voices and genuine experiences can help brands stand out.
Answer engine optimization (AEO) should also remain a priority as more people turn to AI tools for information and recommendations. But don't approach AEO looking for the latest hack or quick fix. We've seen how that approach plays out with SEO when algorithms change, and the same lesson applies here. Focus on building a long-term strategy that can evolve with the LLM landscape.
Don't overlook in-person experiences. In-person interactions close deals. Following the drop-off of on-site sales during COVID, many companies still haven’t rehabilitated this muscle. Marketers can help sales teams close new business deals and renewals by orchestrating human-to-human interaction.
When deciding what new opportunities are worth pursuing, look at what competitors are doing, pay attention to broader market trends and tap your own team. Bring your marketers together to identify the big ideas worth testing in 2027 — sometimes the best innovative ideas come from within
Where to be more careful with your marketing dollars
Paid search deserves closer scrutiny as search behavior changes and audiences discover information through more channels. Look closely at conversion performance rather than assuming last year's investment should carry forward. As audiences increasingly discover information through channels beyond traditional search, programmatic display and paid social will likely deserve a larger share of the budget.
It's tempting to buy every AI tool that lands in your inbox, but a bigger stack isn't the same as better output. Be picky. Before you add anything, get clear on what it's supposed to do and who on your team can actually use it well. A tool nobody knows how to prompt, integrate, or evaluate is just another line item. Budget for AI training the way you budget for the software itself, and revisit both regularly. The tool that made sense six months ago may not be earning its place now.
When to cut a program
Repeated failure to deliver ROI, flat engagement despite meaningful optimization efforts, or rising costs against a shrinking budget are all reasons to reconsider an investment.
But before cutting a program that underperformed, ask why.
Did market conditions shift? Did a new competitor enter the market? Are you targeting the right ideal customer profile (ICP)? Did the program ever get the budget and staffing it needed to work, or did it limp along understaffed from the start? Was the timeline realistic for the results you expected?
A program that failed under one set of circumstances may perform very differently under another. Think about whether any of the factors that led to failure are fixable. If not, it’s worth putting your budget elsewhere.
The biggest mistake to avoid: Budgeting too inflexibly
Locking every dollar to a specific line item feels rigorous, but it leaves no room to move when something unexpected comes up.
Budget in buckets instead. Think "events" instead of a fixed conference list, or an "innovation fund" instead of allocating every dollar in advance. This approach means leadership still sees where the money's going, but your team isn’t isn't stuck.
An innovation bucket can function like a contingency fund, but with a clearer purpose. Use it for new channels, emerging technologies, unexpected partnerships or other opportunities that weren't on the original plan.
The same flexibility can apply to your broader program budget. You may know you want to invest in events, an expanded paid media strategy, or sponsored content without knowing exactly which opportunities will be worth pursuing six months from now.
The goal isn't to predict 2027 perfectly. It's to build a budget that can flex when 2027 doesn't go as planned.
Start now, not in November
The leaders who plan well for 2027 start before the budget template lands in their inbox. Pull 18 months of performance data. Ask your team what they couldn't execute and why. Audit your tech stack while you can still negotiate renewals.
Then build a budget you can defend in the room and still adjust in March. Leadership wants rigor, not rigidity. Show them where the money goes, what it should return, and where you've left room to respond to what you can't predict yet.
