There is no useful average ecommerce marketing budget. A store with high-margin repeat purchases can support very different acquisition costs from a low-margin catalogue with high returns.
Start with store economics
- gross margin by category;
- average order value;
- new-customer acquisition cost;
- refund and cancellation rate;
- repeat purchase behaviour;
- contribution after marketing.
Budget by bottleneck
If demand exists but product pages convert poorly, spend on CRO and merchandising before buying more traffic. If the catalogue is strong but invisible, SEO and paid shopping may deserve more investment. If acquisition is healthy but repeat purchase is weak, retention may create more value than another prospecting campaign.
Measure profit, not dashboard revenue
Track marketing against realised orders, margin and customer type. Platform ROAS can overstate value when refunds, low-margin products or existing customers dominate. See the 90-day ecommerce plan for a fuller framework.
