Digital marketing is often one of the largest discretionary lines in the budget, yet it rarely receives the scrutiny applied to capital expenditure of the same size. Directors are not expected to be specialists — but they are expected to ask good questions.
Here are five we would put to any digital budget before it is approved.
1. What would happen if we spent 20% less?
If nobody can answer with evidence, the organisation does not yet understand the return on the spend it already has.
2. Which of these numbers come from the people who are paid to spend the money?
Platform-reported results are not independent. That does not make them wrong, but it does mean they need corroboration.
3. What did we stop doing last year?
A healthy marketing function prunes. A plan that only ever adds channels, tools and agencies is usually accumulating waste.
4. Who is accountable for the outcome, not the activity?
Agencies are accountable for delivery. Someone inside the business must be accountable for whether the delivery worked.
5. When was this last reviewed by someone independent?
Financial statements are audited every year. The marketing budget that drives them is often never audited at all.
None of these questions require technical expertise to ask. All of them reveal a great deal from the way they are answered.