135: The Simplest Way to Build (and Justify) a Marketing Budget

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Oct 13, 2025

Discover how to build a marketing budget with a focus on single game ROI. Learn to project future budgets using last year’s data and track your performance like an investor. Explore the 70-30 rule for budget allocation that balances ticket acquisition and awareness. Jeremy highlights simple strategies to justify your budget requests and improve efficiency with small, measurable gains. It's all about making your marketing budget bulletproof in just one conversation!

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INSIGHT

Single-Game ROI Is Your North Star

Single-game ROI is the clearest metric to prove marketing drives revenue.
Calculate it by dividing single-game ticket revenue by single-game ad spend.

ADVICE

Reverse-Engineer Budget From Goals

Use historical ROI to reverse-engineer next season's ad budget from revenue goals.
Divide your revenue target by your ROI to justify the exact ad spend needed.

ADVICE

Build In Small Efficiency Gains

Forecast modest efficiency gains (5–10%) and bake them into your ROI target.
Claim realistic improvement to show you're optimizing creative and retargeting year over year.

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In this episode of The Sports Marketing Machine, Jeremy Neisser breaks down a simple, data-driven way to build — and defend — your marketing budget. Forget complicated spreadsheets and vague “awareness goals.” Jeremy shows how using your single game ROI as your north star can turn every budget request into a business case. Learn how to project spend, justify investment, and track your performance with a system built specifically for sports teams.

Key Topics Covered

The easiest way to calculate single game ROI (and why it’s your strongest budget tool)
How to project next year’s budget using last year’s data
Proving efficiency gains to leadership with small, measurable improvements
The 70-30 rule for smart budget allocation (sales vs. awareness)
Why simplicity sells: how to make your budget “bulletproof” in one conversation
Tracking ROI month-by-month like an investor — not a guesser
Turning your marketing budget into an investment plan

Chapters

00:00 – Building a Marketing Budget Framework
01:01 – Understanding Single Game ROI
04:05 – Projecting Future Budgets with Historical Data
07:53 – Improving Marketing Efficiency
10:10 – The 70-30 Rule for Budget Allocation
12:35 – Tracking ROI and Adjusting Strategies
14:54 – Key Takeaways for Marketing Directors

Call to Action

Want help connecting your ad data to your ticketing results so your next budget meeting is a breeze? Head to SportsMarketingMachine.com
to grab time with Jeremy and build your marketing ROI dashboard.

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Episodes mentioned:

Episode 67 – Why Your Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) is WRONG – Case Study

Episode 111 – Building Your Marketing Budget Like a Funnel: Awareness to Action

Episode 125 – “I Saw Your Ad—But Didn’t Buy”: Fixing the Fan Follow-Up Funnel

Episode 121 – How Video Content Makes Paid Traffic Easier (and Cheaper)

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