How to think about ad budget allocation in 2026

Most India performance teams allocate budget by inertia: whatever worked last quarter gets the same share this quarter. That's how you wake up over-indexed on Meta with no organic moat.

The default mix is wrong

If your spend is 80% Meta, 20% Google, you don't have a marketing strategy — you have a Meta dependency. The risk is platform-specific (ad account bans, algorithm shifts, iOS changes) and your CAC is one policy update from doubling.

A simple allocation framework

• 60% to proven channels with attribution you trust
• 25% to scaling channels — adjacent to proven, working but not maxed
• 10% to brand / always-on (YouTube, podcasts, sponsorships)
• 5% to genuine experiments — new channels, new formats

Reserve a test budget

That 5% experimental bucket is the difference between teams that compound and teams that plateau. Spend it. Most experiments fail. The ones that don't fund next year's growth.