Where do the benchmark percentages come from?

They reflect general channel-allocation patterns observed across the listed industries and are meant as a directional reference point, not a guarantee of optimal spend for your specific business.

Does 'over' or 'under' benchmark mean I'm doing something wrong?

Not necessarily. A channel above benchmark may be performing well and deserve the extra investment — treat the comparison as a prompt to investigate performance, not an automatic instruction to cut spend.

Should I reallocate my budget exactly as suggested?

Use the suggestion as a starting hypothesis. Before shifting spend, check each channel's actual performance data (CPA, ROAS, lead quality) so you don't move budget away from something that's working.

How often should I re-run this audit?

Most businesses benefit from reviewing channel allocation quarterly, or whenever a channel's cost or performance shifts significantly.

FREE TOOLAuditor

Marketing Spend Auditor

Enter your current spend per channel and see how it compares to industry benchmarks — and where to reallocate for better returns.

The audit converts each channel's spend into a share of your total budget and compares it against a directional benchmark mix for your industry — a channel more than 5 percentage points off the benchmark is flagged for a closer look.

Pick your industry, enter what you spend on each channel per month (leave a channel blank for ₹0), and the audit shows where your mix sits against the directional benchmark for that industry.

Your industry

Sets which benchmark column your mix is compared against

Google Ads (₹/month)

Search, Shopping, YouTube spend

Meta Ads (FB/IG) (₹/month)

Facebook + Instagram ad spend

SEO / Content (₹/month)

Retainer, links, technical work

Social Media Mgmt (₹/month)

Organic social management

Email Marketing (₹/month)

Platform + campaign costs

Content Creation (₹/month)

Design, video, copywriting

Other / Misc (₹/month)

Anything that fits nowhere else

Total monthly spend₹55,000

How the audit works

No performance data enters the calculation — the audit looks purely at how your budget is distributed. The chain runs:

Your allocation — each channel's spend divided by your total monthly spend gives the share of budget that channel actually receives.
The comparison — that share is set against the benchmark share for your industry (full table below). Within ±5 percentage points counts as optimal; further out is flagged as over- or under-invested.
The suggestion — for each flagged channel, the tool shows what the benchmark share of your own total would be in rupees. It is a starting hypothesis for a performance review, not an instruction to move money.

The ±5-point tolerance is deliberate: allocation mixes are lumpy, and a small drift from a directional benchmark is noise, not a finding.

The full benchmark table — a directional reference

These are the exact numbers the audit compares against: hand-authored channel-allocation patterns for each industry, meant as a directional reference point — not measured data from a named study or from Deltanoid client accounts, and not a guarantee of optimal spend for your business. Every row sums to 100% of budget.

Benchmark share of total marketing budget per channel, by industry (directional editorial table)
Industry	Google Ads	Meta Ads (FB/IG)	SEO / Content	Social Media Mgmt	Email Marketing	Content Creation	Other / Misc
E-commerce	30%	25%	15%	10%	10%	5%	5%
Local Services	35%	20%	20%	8%	7%	5%	5%
Hotels / Hospitality	20%	30%	15%	20%	8%	5%	2%
Healthcare / Clinics	30%	15%	25%	10%	10%	7%	3%
Real Estate	35%	25%	15%	12%	5%	5%	3%
Education / Ed-Tech	20%	20%	20%	15%	15%	8%	2%
SaaS / B2B Tech	20%	10%	25%	8%	20%	12%	5%

Reading it: a local services business is assumed to lean hardest on Google Ads (35%) because near-me searches convert fastest, while SaaS/B2B shifts weight toward SEO, email and content (57% combined) where longer sales cycles reward owned audiences.

Assumptions this tool makes

The benchmark table is a directional editorial reference — hand-authored allocation patterns per industry, not measured data from a study or client accounts.
The ±5-percentage-point “optimal” band is an editorial tolerance, not a statistical threshold.
Channels are compared purely on share of spend — a rupee in email is treated as comparable to a rupee in Google Ads.
Your total budget is taken as given: the “ideal spend” figures redistribute the same total, they never suggest spending more or less overall.

Limitations

It sees allocation, not performance — a channel can be over benchmark and still be your best performer. Check CPA, ROAS and lead quality before cutting anything.
Industries are broad buckets: a niche B2B manufacturer and a D2C brand both reading “E-commerce” will have genuinely different optimal mixes.
It is a monthly snapshot — seasonality, launches and one-off campaigns will legitimately skew a single month away from any benchmark.
The suggested reallocation is a hypothesis to investigate, not a plan to execute — the tool's FAQ below says exactly that on purpose.