Paid Media

Media Mix Calculator

Media mix arguments get abstract fast. Turning percentages into dollars ends most of them in about ten seconds, and it exposes the reserve you did or did not leave yourself for testing.

Your numbers

Result

Search budget$45,000
Paid social budget$30,000
Video budget$15,000
Unallocated for testing$10,000Negative means your percentages add up to more than 100.

FormulaChannel budget = total budget × channel share %. Remainder = total × (100% − sum of shares)

Worked example

On a $100,000 budget split 45 percent search, 30 percent social and 15 percent video, you get $45,000, $30,000 and $15,000 respectively, leaving $10,000 unallocated. That last 10 percent is the most valuable line in the plan: it is the only money free to find your next working channel.

What to watch for

I hold a testing reserve of roughly 10 percent on every plan I sign off. Without it, a mix ossifies, and the account is still running the same three channels two years later because nothing was ever funded to challenge them.

Demand capture and demand creation should be planned as separate pots, not as one channel list. Search mostly harvests intent that other spend created, so cutting the creating channels makes search look great for a quarter and then quietly starves it.

Never rebalance a mix on a single month of data. Channel performance is noisy at typical budgets, and moving 20 percent of spend on one bad month is how you end up chasing noise with a spreadsheet.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good media mix?

There is no universal split. Businesses with strong existing demand lean heavier on capture channels like search, while new categories need more creation spend in social and video because nobody is searching for a thing they do not know exists.

How often should I change the mix?

Review quarterly, adjust in increments of about 10 percent of total budget, and let each change run long enough to read. Constant reallocation destroys the learning phases the platforms rely on.

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This calculator runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you enter is sent to a server, logged, or stored. Figures are for planning and do not constitute financial advice. See disclosures.