Planning Your 2027 Marketing Budget: What Adviser Firms Should Keep, Cut and Test

Before you allocate a single pound for 2027, look closely at what 2026 actually delivered. Most firms judge channels on cost per lead because it is the easiest number to find in an ad platform. It is also the least useful number for budget decisions on its own.

Review each channel on three levels:

• Cost per lead (CPL). What did each enquiry cost? Adviser CPL typically sits between £50 and £150, with Google Ads often around £60 to £130 and LinkedIn around £100 to £180. These ranges are useful context, but a channel at the top of the range can still be your best performer.
• Cost per acquisition (CPA). What did each new client cost once you account for leads that never booked, booked but did not show, or met and did not proceed? Adviser CPA usually lands between £400 and £1,200. This is where channels start to separate.
• Client value. What is a client from each channel worth over time? Initial fees, ongoing advice fees, assets under advice and referrals all count. A channel producing fewer, wealthier clients can beat a cheaper channel comfortably.

Pull the data into a single table with one row per channel and columns for spend, leads, CPL, booked meetings, show rate, clients won, CPA, average first-year revenue and estimated lifetime value. If your CRM cannot produce this cleanly, that is your first finding, and fixing it belongs in the 2027 budget.

Look for patterns rather than single numbers. Did one channel produce lots of leads but very few meetings? That often points to lead quality or follow-up problems rather than the channel itself. Did one campaign spike after a specific event, such as the Spring Budget or tax year end? That tells you something about timing. Did referrals or introducers produce your best clients at almost no cost? That is an argument for investing in the referral process, not just paid media.

Be careful with small numbers. A channel that won three clients is not proven, and a channel that won none from a small test may simply need a longer run. Note sample sizes next to every figure so nobody over-reads a lucky month.

Finally, compare your figures with sector context. Published UK financial adviser lead generation benchmarks give you ranges to sense-check against. If your CPL is well below benchmark but CPA is above it, the problem is downstream of the ad. If both are high, look at targeting, creative and landing pages first.

The output of this review should be a short written summary: what worked, what did not, what you are unsure about, and what data you are missing. That summary drives every decision that follows.

The most common budgeting method in adviser firms is to take last year's spend, add a percentage, and keep the same split. It is quick and it avoids arguments, but it locks in whatever inefficiencies already exist. Zero-based budgeting asks a different question: if we were starting from nothing, what would we spend on each activity to hit our growth target?

In practice, full zero-based budgeting is overkill for most firms. A lighter version works well:

1. Start from the revenue target. How many new clients do you need in 2027, and of what type? A firm that wants 40 new retirement planning clients and 10 business owner clients has a very different budget from one that wants 150 mortgage clients.

2. Work backwards through the funnel. For each client type, use your 2026 conversion rates to calculate the meetings and leads required. If you need 40 clients, convert 30% of meetings into clients and 60% of leads into meetings, you need roughly 133 meetings and 222 leads.

3. Price the leads by channel. Multiply required leads by realistic CPL for each channel you plan to use, based on your own 2026 data where you have it and benchmarks where you do not. The lead budget calculator does this arithmetic quickly and lets you test different conversion assumptions.

4. Justify every line. Every channel, agency retainer, software subscription, event and sponsorship must earn its place against the target. If you cannot explain what a line item contributes, cut it or move it into the test budget with a clear hypothesis.

5. Add the non-media costs. Creative production, compliance review time, landing page development, CRM and measurement tools, and the staff time needed to follow up leads all belong in the plan. Many firms underfund follow-up and then blame the channel for poor results.

This approach often reveals uncomfortable truths. A long-running directory listing may produce almost nothing. A sponsorship may be justified by relationships rather than leads, which is fine as long as it is labelled honestly. And the budget needed to hit the target may be higher than the board expected, which is better discovered in November than in July.

Zero-based logic also helps when spend must fall. If you need to cut, you can see which activities contribute least per pound and cut those first, rather than trimming everything equally and weakening the channels that work.

Keep the workings. When partners ask why the budget changed, a clear chain from revenue target to required leads to channel cost is far more persuasive than a percentage uplift.

Once you know the total budget, you need a way to split it that balances reliable results with learning. A widely used framework divides spend into three buckets, often in a ratio around 70/20/10.

Core (around 70%). Channels and campaigns with a proven track record in your firm. You have at least several months of data, CPA sits within an acceptable range, and the clients they produce fit your proposition. For many adviser firms this means Google search for high-intent terms, established Meta campaigns for retirement or protection, and investment in referrals and introducers. Core spend should be managed for efficiency: steady optimisation, creative refreshes and budget pacing rather than reinvention.

Growth (around 20%). Channels or campaigns that have shown promise but are not yet proven at scale. Perhaps LinkedIn produced a handful of good business owner clients in 2026, or a retargeting programme looked promising in a short test. Growth spend is about scaling carefully: increasing budget in steps, watching whether CPA holds as volume rises, and moving successful activity into core once it has earned the right.

Test (around 10%). New channels, formats, audiences or propositions where you do not yet know the answer. Each test needs a written hypothesis, a fixed budget, a defined time period and a success measure agreed before it starts. For example: "We will spend £3,000 on Microsoft Ads over three months targeting retirement planning terms. Success is a CPA within 20% of our Google search CPA."

The ratio is a guide, not a rule. A newer firm with little proven activity may need a larger test bucket. A firm with tight cash flow and a clear growth target may run 80/15/5. A firm entering a new segment, such as business owner exit planning ahead of the April 2027 BADR change, may temporarily push more into growth.

What matters is that every pound sits in a bucket with a purpose, and that money moves between buckets during the year based on evidence. Review allocations quarterly. Promote tests that hit their success measure, demote growth activity that stalls, and cut core activity whose performance has drifted.

Avoid two common traps. The first is letting tests run indefinitely because nobody wants to admit they failed; a test that misses its measure should end. The second is starving the test bucket entirely when results are good. Channels that work now will not necessarily work in two years, and firms that stop testing find themselves exposed when costs rise or a platform changes.

Document the framework in a single page so the whole team, including advisers who receive the leads, understands why spend is distributed the way it is.

Advice demand is seasonal, and 2027 has an unusually concentrated set of dates. Mapping your budget to these moments means spending more when intent is high and building content and audiences before the peaks, rather than reacting once competitors are already visible.

January to early April 2027: tax year end. The tax year ends on 5 April 2027, and the usual end-of-year planning conversations around pension contributions, ISA allowances and gifting apply. Search and social interest typically builds from January.

ISA season with the full £20,000 allowance. The Autumn Budget scrapped the plan announced at Budget 2025 to cut the cash ISA allowance to £12,000 for under-65s from April 2027. The full £20,000 ISA allowance remains. That removes a planned message about cash ISA changes but keeps ISA season as a reliable demand moment. The government also said it will work with industry on a new Starter ISA for first-time investors, with no date confirmed, so avoid building campaigns around it yet.

6 April 2027: pensions within inheritance tax. Pensions come within the scope of IHT from this date, confirmed by Finance Act 2026. Technical changes allow personal representatives, where conditions are met, to direct a scheme administrator to pay IHT due to HMRC. With the nil rate band (£325,000) and residence nil rate band (£175,000) frozen to April 2031, more estates will be affected. Expect estate planning interest to climb through late 2026 and early 2027, and plan content and paid campaigns accordingly.

6 April 2027: BADR lifetime limit halves. Business Asset Disposal Relief falls from £1m to £500,000 for disposals from this date, with the 18% rate unchanged. Business owner and exit planning campaigns should run from now through the spring, with careful messaging that avoids false urgency.

6 April 2027: savings and property income tax rates rise. Savings income tax rates rise to 24%, 44% and 49%, and property income tax rates rise to the same levels in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Landlords also face Making Tax Digital for Income Tax if qualifying income is £30,000 or more from the same date. These changes give firms a reason to talk to savers and landlords about their wider position.

All year: targeted support competition. Providers and platforms using targeted support may run campaigns to their own customer bases around these same dates. Expect more competition for attention among pension savers, and make your proposition clear on what regulated advice offers that a generic suggestion does not.

Plot these dates on a single 2027 calendar with planned spend by month. Most firms should weight budget towards January to April, then maintain a steady base through the rest of the year rather than going dark.

Your test bucket should go to channels with a realistic chance of becoming core within a year. Three stand out for adviser firms in 2027.

Microsoft Ads. Microsoft's search network reaches an audience that skews older and more desktop-based, which overlaps well with retirement planning and estate planning prospects. Competition is generally lighter than on Google, so cost per click can be lower, although volume is smaller. Importing your best-performing Google search campaigns is a quick way to test, but review keywords, audiences and ad extensions rather than assuming everything translates. Our comparison of Microsoft Ads and Google Ads sets out where each fits. A fair test needs at least two to three months and enough budget to generate meaningful conversion data.

YouTube and Demand Gen. Video is underused by advisers, yet complex topics such as pensions and IHT are often easier to explain on screen than in a static ad. Google's Demand Gen campaigns can serve video and image ads across YouTube, Discover and Gmail, reaching people before they search. Treat this as a mid-funnel channel: expect higher CPL than search initially, and judge it partly on how it lifts branded search and retargeting audiences. Our guide to YouTube and Demand Gen ads for financial advisers covers formats, targeting and compliant creative.

AI search visibility. More consumers now ask AI assistants and AI-powered search features questions such as "how will pensions be taxed on death from 2027". These tools draw on content they can find and trust. You cannot buy placement in most of them, but you can improve the odds of being cited by publishing clear, accurate, well-structured explanations, keeping firm details consistent across the web and maintaining genuine reviews. Budget here is mainly content and technical work rather than media. Measurement is immature, so define simple indicators: referral traffic from AI tools in analytics, branded search trends and enquiries that mention finding you through an assistant.

Other candidates depend on your firm. LinkedIn may be a test for firms new to business owner or corporate pensions work. Meta lead forms versus landing pages is a worthwhile format test if you have only used one. Podcasts, local radio and community sponsorships can suit regional firms with a strong local brand.

Whatever you test, keep the discipline described earlier: a written hypothesis, a fixed budget and timeframe, and a success measure tied to CPA or client value rather than clicks. Run one or two tests at a time so results are readable, and do not judge a test in its first fortnight, because most platforms need time to optimise.

A budget is only as good as the data behind it. If you cannot see which channels produce clients, every allocation decision is guesswork. For many firms, the best return in 2027 will come not from a new channel but from fixing measurement.

Priorities to consider:

Connect leads to outcomes. Every lead should carry its source, campaign and keyword or audience into your CRM, and every lead should be updated as it progresses: contacted, meeting booked, meeting attended, client won, revenue. Without this chain you are stuck optimising on CPL. Use consistent UTM parameters on all paid and email links and make sure forms capture them.

Send outcome data back to platforms. Ad platforms optimise towards the signals you give them. If you only report form submissions, they will find people who fill in forms. If you report booked meetings or qualified leads through offline conversion imports or server-side tools such as the Meta Conversions API, they can find people more likely to become clients. Our guide to building a measurement stack across Meta CAPI, Google, GA4 and CRM explains how to set this up.

Track show rate. The gap between booked meetings and attended meetings is often where marketing money is lost. Measure show rate by channel. If one source produces many bookings but poor attendance, the fix may be in confirmations and reminders rather than the ad.

Introduce lead scoring. A simple score based on form answers such as pension value, age, timeframe and service needed helps advisers prioritise follow-up and gives you a better optimisation signal. Review the score against outcomes every quarter.

Report monthly on the right numbers. A short monthly dashboard covering spend, leads, CPL, meetings, show rate, clients, CPA and pipeline value by channel is enough for most firms. Agree it with partners now so the conversation through the year is about outcomes, not impressions.

Respect consent and data rules. Tracking and data sharing must comply with UK GDPR and PECR. Make sure your cookie consent, privacy notices and data processing agreements cover what you are doing, particularly when sending customer data to ad platforms.

Budget explicitly for this work. A CRM upgrade, a few days of developer time, or a measurement audit may cost less than a single month of paid media but improve every month that follows. List these as named lines in the plan rather than hoping they fit around other work.

A useful rule: do not increase spend on any channel in 2027 until you can see its CPA, not just its CPL. That one discipline prevents most budget mistakes.

A budget is a forecast with money attached. The more honestly you forecast, the easier it is to adjust during the year without panic.

Build three scenarios. Create a base case using your 2026 conversion rates and realistic CPL by channel. Then build a cautious case, assuming CPL rises by 15% to 25% and conversion slips slightly, and an optimistic case, assuming improvements from better follow-up and measurement. The gap between the three tells you how much risk sits in the plan. The lead forecast simulator lets you model these scenarios and see how changes in CPL, conversion and budget flow through to clients and revenue.

Phase spend by month. Use the 2027 calendar to weight spend towards January to April, when tax year end, ISA season and the 6 April changes concentrate demand. Forecast leads and clients by month, not just for the year, so you can tell early if you are off track.

Allow for time lags. Advice clients rarely convert in the month they enquire. Estate planning and business owner prospects may take several months, and exit planning relationships can take years. Forecast revenue with these lags in mind, otherwise early months will look disappointing and spend may be cut just before it pays off.

Set trigger points. Decide in advance what will cause you to move money. For example: if a test hits its CPA target for two consecutive months, double its budget; if a core channel's CPA rises above £1,200 for six weeks, pause and investigate; if adviser capacity is full, reduce spend rather than letting leads go cold.

Match spend to capacity. Marketing that produces more leads than advisers can contact quickly wastes money and harms the customer experience. Forecast meetings against adviser diaries and paraplanning capacity, and plan recruitment or outsourcing if growth targets require it.

Keep a contingency. Holding back 5% to 10% of the annual budget lets you respond to unexpected opportunities, such as a further policy announcement or a competitor withdrawing from a channel, without raiding proven activity.

Review the forecast monthly against actuals and formally each quarter. Update assumptions based on what you learn, and record why each change was made. By the end of 2027 you will have a far more accurate model to plan 2028 with, which is the real long-term value of disciplined forecasting.

Present the forecast to partners as a range rather than a single number. It sets realistic expectations and makes it easier to secure agreement for mid-year adjustments when the evidence supports them.

Here is a practical sequence to move from a blank spreadsheet to an agreed 2027 marketing budget before the end of the year.

Week 1: review 2026.

• Export spend, leads, meetings, show rate, clients and revenue by channel for the year to date.
• Calculate CPL, CPA and estimated client value for each channel, and note sample sizes.
• Write a one-page summary of what worked, what did not, and where data is missing.

Week 2: set targets and build the budget.

• Agree 2027 new client targets by type with partners or shareholders.
• Work backwards through the funnel to required meetings and leads.
• Price each channel with zero-based logic, including creative, compliance, technology and follow-up costs.
• Run the numbers through the lead budget calculator and sense-check against benchmarks.

Week 3: allocate and schedule.

• Split spend into core, growth and test buckets, starting around 70/20/10 and adjusting for your firm.
• Write hypotheses, budgets, timeframes and success measures for each test, for example Microsoft Ads, YouTube and Demand Gen, or AI search visibility content.
• Map spend to the 2027 calendar: tax year end on 5 April 2027, ISA season with the £20,000 allowance retained, pensions within IHT and the BADR limit change from 6 April 2027, and the higher savings and property income tax rates from the same date.
• Plan content and creative early so it is approved before January.

Week 4: measurement, forecast and sign-off.

• List the measurement upgrades needed and budget for them as named lines.
• Build base, cautious and optimistic forecasts and set trigger points for moving money.
• Check that adviser capacity matches forecast meetings.
• Present the plan as a range, agree the review cadence, and get sign-off.

Through 2027:

• Review a monthly dashboard on CPA and pipeline value, not CPL alone.
• Reallocate quarterly based on evidence: promote successful tests, demote stalled growth activity.
• Watch competitor activity, including targeted support campaigns from providers and platforms, and keep your proposition clear on the value of regulated advice.
• Keep all promotions fair, clear and not misleading, with particular care around date-driven tax messaging.

The firms that grow fastest in 2027 will not necessarily be the ones that spend most. They will be the ones that know which pound produces which client and move money accordingly. If you would like an independent view of your 2026 performance or help modelling your 2027 plan, speak to our team.