# You know your ROAS. But is your marketing _budget split right?_

Get the actual numbers: channel by channel, tailored to your business. Free - got 2 minutes?

### Annual Revenue

$

### Gross Margin %

%

$1M $5M $10M $25M $50M $100M+

### Your context shapes your breakdown

### Your Category

- General / Other
- Beauty & Skincare
- Supplements & Health
- Apparel & Fashion
- Home & Lifestyle
- Food & Beverage
- Fitness & Sports

### Average Order Value

$

### Repeat Purchase Rate

%

**Calculate my budget →**

This is a **live preview** using a $10M beauty brand at 65% margin. Enter your numbers above and hit **Calculate my budget** to get your actual breakdown.

### Your CFMO's recommended marketing budget

$2.3M

23% of $10,000,000 revenue

### Scaling Phase

You've found your channels. Now build the infrastructure that compounds - influencer belongs here.

### Current Marketing Budget Split

#### What High-Performing Brands Do Differently

100 dots. Each one is 1% of your marketing budget. Where they land tells a story.

- Paid Social 38%
- Paid Search 17%
- Email & SMS 13%
- Influencer 16%
- SEO & Content 8%
- Other 8%

#### How most CMOs might allocate

**Paid Social**  
Meta, TikTok - high reach, high cost  
38%  
$874K per year

At **65% gross margin**, your contribution headroom per order is strong - but Meta CPMs in beauty are among the highest of any D2C category. This allocation is the sustainable ceiling given your AOV.

**Paid Search**  
Google & Shopping - capturing existing demand  
17%  
$391K per year

**Email & SMS**  
Your highest-margin channel. Already paid for.  
13%  
$299K per year

At 38% repeat rate, your email and SMS channel is already working. **Every dollar here costs a fraction of paid acquisition** - you've already paid to acquire these customers. Most beauty brands underinvest here relative to the return.

**Influencer**  
The most underinvested channel at your revenue stage  
16%  
$368K per year

Beauty is the category where influencer ROI is most defensible. **LTV by first product purchased can vary 2x at the same CAC** - influencer-acquired customers in this category typically show stronger reorder rates than paid social cold traffic.

**SEO & Content**  
Slow to build, expensive to ignore  
8%  
$184K per year

**Other**  
PR, affiliates, community  
8%  
$184K per year

#### How most brands at your stage are spending

- Paid Social 38%  
- Paid Search 17%  
- Email & SMS 13%  
- Influencer 16%  
- SEO & Content 8%  
- Other 8%

Most brands default to paid social first. Influencer gets whatever is left over.

### What brands that are pulling ahead are doing differently

- Paid Social -5%  
33%
- Paid Search 17%
- Email & SMS +1%  
14%
- Influencer +4%  
20%
- SEO & Content 8%
- Other 8%

Brands reallocating ~$92K/year toward structured influencer are not just getting creator content - they're reducing Meta CPMs, improving CVR, and building a customer base that refers. The paid account improves because the brand improves.

### What your CFMO has seen in brands like yours

At **65% gross margin**, your P&L can carry more marketing weight than most brands your size. Ridge runs **40% of revenue through marketing** at a 2.5:1 blended MER - possible because great margin + lean Opex creates the room.

#### Beauty is the category where influencer ROI is most defensible.

**LTV by first product purchased can vary 2x at the same CAC** - influencer-acquired customers in this category typically show stronger reorder rates than paid social cold traffic.

Brands that moved influencer from a line-item experiment to a **structured pyramid** (seeding to paid posts to ambassadors) saw their paid social accounts improve - the creative and social proof fed directly back into the ad account's efficiency.

### Your CFMO gave influencer _16 dots_. Here's the financial case for why.

Globally, brands spent roughly **$200B on Facebook ads** last year. Influencer marketing drew around **$10B** - a **20× gap** - despite consistently stronger results in discovery-led categories. The reason most brands under-invest isn't ROI. It's that they can't show it to a CFO in a language they trust. That's an infrastructure problem, not a performance problem.

### $200B

**Spent on Facebook Ads**

### $10B

**Spent on Influencers**

### 20×

**The Opportunity Gap**

### Wait, we got more

On how to prove ROI to your _CFO_

Your CFMO just told you where influencer belongs in your budget. This playbook shows you how to prove it's working - in the language your CFO actually cares about. A 3-phase ROI model, a leadership reporting cadence, and the financial metrics that protect your influencer budget when results come under scrutiny.

Built from conversations with operators at Slumberkins, Spacegoods, Charlie Oscar, KnoCommerce and others who've had this fight - and won it.

[Get the free playbook →](https://www.getsaral.com/resources/influencer-marketing-impact-measurement?utm_source=web_app&utm_medium=sat_app&utm_campaign=ebook_impact_measurement&utm_content=d2c_marketing_budget_calculator)

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**Benchmarks drawn from 100+ D2C P&L analysis across 7 categories. Frameworks are grounded in real marketing budgets and operator data. Outputs are directional - not a substitute for your own financial model or advisor.**