Instead of demanding a large budget upfront, CMOs should partner with the CFO on a pragmatic, step-by-step journey. At e.l.f. Cosmetics, the marketing budget grew from 6% to 24% of net revenue over six years by proving the ROI of each incremental increase, building a strong case for continued investment over time.

Establish a single, blended CAC target across all marketing channels. As long as your total spend stays below this number, you have the flexibility to continue spending and experimenting with new channels without being beholden to the short-term performance of any single one.

By establishing a TROI target (e.g., 11 months) that the company's finance team is comfortable with, the marketing team gains autonomy to spend without a fixed cap. As long as new investments are projected to pay back within that timeframe, the budget can scale indefinitely.

A study of 110 CMOs reveals a direct correlation between growth and marketing spend. High-growth firms (over 6% YoY revenue growth) invest substantially more—about 35%—in their marketing budgets, challenging the common practice of cutting marketing during economic uncertainty.

To achieve significant growth (over 10%), contractors should allocate 10-12% of their target revenue goal to marketing, not a percentage of last year's actual revenue. This forward-looking investment is scary but necessary to fund the growth you want to achieve, rather than just sustaining current levels.

Instead of ad-hoc campaign planning, use a matrix with solutions on one axis and ICP segments on the other. Each cell gets a priority rating and a percentage allocation tied directly to revenue targets, ensuring budget is weighted toward the most valuable opportunities first.

Effective businesses base their acquisition spending on the total expected lifetime profit from a customer (the "back end"), not the profit from the initial sale. This allows for more aggressive and sustainable growth by reinvesting future earnings into current acquisition efforts.

To make a services business more attractive to buyers, owners should aggressively increase marketing spend to 20% of net revenue in the year leading up to the sale. This demonstrates strong growth potential and a robust lead generation engine, justifying a higher valuation.

Jon Miller highlights a fatal flaw in the common practice of calculating marketing budget by working backward from new ARR goals. This "reverse waterfall" model is entirely focused on net-new acquisition, which means it inherently allocates zero budget for marketing to existing customers, crippling retention and expansion efforts.