A guy at the Denver airport bar showed me his ad spend spreadsheet on his phone.

We were both stuck on a long delay last Tuesday. He pulled it up to kill time, and I saw he had a single column for 'waste' next to every campaign. He said he puts in a dollar amount for any ad that felt like a guess or a hope, not a real plan. His rule is if that column hits 20% of his total budget for the month, he stops everything and reworks his whole approach. I started doing it this week and it's already making me question a lot of my usual buys. Has anyone else tried something like this to force a hard look at where the money actually goes?

3 comments

3 Comments

anna_ross191mo ago

How do you even start putting a number on that "waste" feeling? I tried a version of this last year where I just marked any ad spend I couldn't directly link to a clear customer action as "fuzzy". Seeing that total by itself was brutal... it was way over 20%. It forced me to kill a bunch of brand awareness stuff that felt good but never really did anything.

the_sandra1mo ago

Man, @anna_ross19, that "fuzzy" bucket idea is so smart. I did something similar but called it my "mystery meat" budget line. When I finally added it all up, it was mostly for fancy trade show swag that nobody remembered. Had to just stop buying the branded socks.

finleyh891mo ago

Read a blog post that called this the "slush fund" problem. It's crazy how much can hide in there.