Launch Budget Split: a marketing budget allocation simulation
The sales team wants promotions, the agency loves posters and the data team wants a clean test. You have three flights to find out which channels really pay for this product.
- $600k to launch a new drink across three four-week flights
- Five channels with hidden strength, saturation and carry-over
- Measured results after each flight, with real noise
- Scored on return, learning from data and the brand you build
Not sure yet? Try the free 3-round Price War first: no sign-up, about five minutes.
What is a good simulation for learning how to allocate a marketing budget across channels?
Launch Budget Split is a Bodhih Arena micro-sim in which you launch a new sparkling tea with $600k across five channels and three four-week flights. Every channel saturates, some carry over, and brand spend makes search work harder. After each flight you read measured results and shift money; the debrief reveals the true ranking.
What is Launch Budget Split?
Launch Budget Split is an online marketing budget allocation simulation. As brand manager for Fernlight, a new sparkling tea, you split $200k per flight across search ads, social video, in-store promotions, creator partnerships and outdoor. Each channel has a hidden strength and saturation point, and one is a surprise winner. After each flight you see the extra packs each channel drove and the cost per pack, a little noisy, and decide where the next money goes. Unspent budget carries forward.
Launch Budget Split at a glance
| Format | Micro-sim, single player |
|---|---|
| Length | About 15 minutes per play |
| Players | One person; every play is a new seeded scenario |
| Devices | Any modern browser on a laptop, tablet or phone |
| Scoring | Scored on the server out of 100, with sub-scores and a debrief |
| Credential | Open Badges 3.0 micro-sim credential at a score of 80 or more, with a public verification page |
| Competencies | Commercial Acumen (SPN.4.5), Data Literacy (SPN.6.2), Systems Thinking (SPN.4.4) |
| LMS | LTI 1.3 launch from Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard or D2L, with grade passback; usable as a Bodhih pathway stage |
| Price for one person | $12 |
| Price per seat | $12 per seat, volume pricing by seat count |
Launch budgets are split by habit, then defended by averages
Last year's split becomes this year's plan
The mix is set before anyone knows what will work for this product, and the channel with the strongest internal champion keeps its share.
Average cost hides the last dollar
A channel with a good average cost per sale gets more money, even when its last tranche of spend was poor value. Nobody looks at the next dollar.
Brand spend is the first cut
Awareness work is slow to show up in the numbers, so it is easy to trim. The cost appears later, when demand capture gets dearer and nobody connects the two.
Here is the situation you walk into
You are the brand manager for Fernlight, a new sparkling tea sold in four-packs. Each pack sold at full price contributes $3.00; on promotion, $1.80. You have $600k of launch money, released as three four-week flights of $200k each.
Five channels are on the table: search ads that catch people already looking, short social videos, in-store promotions and displays, paid posts from food and fitness creators, and posters at stations and bus stops. Awareness starts at 8%. Nobody knows in advance which channel will work best for this product, and one of them is quietly much better than it looks.
Flight one has no data at all. You set the split in $10k steps, keep back anything you like for later, and press go. Four weeks later the results arrive: extra packs per channel, cost per extra pack, awareness. The numbers are measured, so they are a little noisy. Now decide what to move.
5 decisions, one debrief
- STEP 1
Flight 1: a launch and a test
Split $200k across the five channels. Spreading wide enough to read each channel is a test as much as a launch. Anything you do not spend carries to the next flight.
- STEP 2
Read the first results
A table shows spend, extra packs and cost per extra pack by channel, with a bar chart of cost per pack and a line chart of awareness. Promotions move packs fast but at a thin margin, and some are borrowed from next month.
- STEP 3
Flight 2: shift in steps
Move money towards the channels with the lowest cost per extra pack, remembering that each channel saturates and that brand channels carry over and make search cheaper.
- STEP 4
Flight 3: commit
Your last $200k plus anything you held back. This flight's mix is where the score checks whether you learned which channels truly paid best.
- STEP 5
The debrief
Your contribution after marketing against an even split and a strong plan built on the true curves, your mix, the awareness you left behind, the surprise winner and the true channel ranking.
Who Launch Budget Split is for
- Brand and product marketing managers. You split launch and campaign budgets. Practise test-and-shift on a product where the truth is revealed at the end.
- Performance and growth marketers. You live in cost-per-acquisition dashboards. This shows how awareness spend you do not control changes the numbers you are judged on.
- Marketing heads and CMOs. Use it to align brand and performance teams on one way of judging the next dollar, rather than defending channel budgets.
- Marketing and MBA students. Response curves, carry-over and marketing mix theory become one hands-on decision with noisy data, much closer to the real job.
Who should skip it
It is not a marketing mix modelling course and will not teach you to build an attribution model from your own data.
What you will do with the next budget you are handed
Launch Budget Split builds commercial judgement about marketing money: reading imperfect data, deciding under uncertainty and protecting the long-term brand while you chase this month's numbers.
You will judge the next dollar, not the average
You will ask what the last tranche of spend in each channel returned, and move money until the next dollar earns about the same everywhere.
You will design the first flight as a test
You will put enough into each channel to read a result before committing, and resist the urge to bet the launch on one opinion.
You will defend brand spend with logic
You will be able to explain how awareness carries over and makes search cheaper, so cutting it saves money now and costs more later.
You will read noisy data without overreacting
You will treat a measured result as evidence, not truth, and shift in steps rather than swinging the whole budget on one flight.
You will see the true cost of promotions
You will weigh fast volume at a thin margin against the sales it borrows from next month.
Learning goals
- Allocate on the return of the next dollar, not the average
- Run a test-and-learn budget: read results, then shift spend
- See how awareness channels make demand-capture channels work
Skills practised: Marketing budget allocation, Test-and-learn planning, Decision making under uncertainty, Commercial judgement, Reading noisy data, Strategic thinking about brand.
Competencies scored
Sub-scores map to the open Bodhih Competency Spine, so results sit beside your other learning records.
What the debrief shows
- Contribution after marketing for your launch, against an even split and a strong plan that used the true curves.
- Your channel mix across the whole launch, and the awareness you ended with.
- How much of your last flight went to the two channels that truly paid best, the surprise winner among the channels and the true ranking at a $40k test.
- Why saturation, carry-over and promotions behave as they do, what strong players do, and the key concept of diminishing marginal returns.
Diminishing marginal returns
Each extra dollar in a channel brings fewer extra sales than the one before. The best budget split is where the next dollar earns about the same in every channel, not where the average looks best.
Use Launch Budget Split with a team
Seats are $12 each. Buy up to 25 seats online and assign them from your company admin; above that, or for a facilitated programme or an institution licence, request a quote and we activate your seats after payment.
Annual planning or budget workshop
Have the marketing team play it before budget season, then discuss: who tested wide, who backed one channel, who cut brand spend? It gives brand and performance people a shared vocabulary.
Pre-work for marketing analytics training
Assign it ahead of a session on measurement. Participants arrive having made real allocation calls on noisy numbers.
A stage in a marketing pathway
Add it to a Bodhih pathway for marketers or new brand managers. Completion counts towards the stage, and sub-scores map to Commercial Acumen, Data Literacy and Systems Thinking.
Assessment centre or LMS assignment
Use it as a structured exercise for marketing manager candidates, or assign it from Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard or D2L with LTI 1.3 and grade passback for a marketing class.
Volume pricing
| Seats | Per seat | How to buy |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $12 | Online |
| 2 to 10 | $10.80 | Online |
| 11 to 50 | $9.60 | Online up to 25, then quote |
| 51+ | $8.40 | Quote |
Launch Budget Split compared with a case study or slide-based course
| Compared on | A case study or slide-based course | Launch Budget Split |
|---|---|---|
| Response curves | A chart explaining diminishing returns. | Five channels whose hidden curves you discover by spending. |
| Data | Clean figures in an exhibit. | Measured results after each flight, with noise, like a real dashboard. |
| Learning loop | One decision, then discussion. | Three flights: allocate, read, shift, and see the effect of each change. |
| Brand effects | Described in theory. | Awareness carries over and lowers the cost of search as you play. |
| Feedback | A model answer. | Your result against an even split and a strong plan, plus the true ranking. |
| Where a case wins | Creative strategy, brand positioning and real market history. | It trains the money decision only; the message and creative are fixed. |
What to pair with Launch Budget Split
The Annual Marketing Plan and Budget System
Its plan and budget workbook and scenario simulator let you apply next-dollar thinking to your real annual budget.
See the kit →Pro KitThe Product Launch Command Centre
For running the rest of a real launch around the budget: a launch workbook, forecast calculator, messages and a 70-event calendar.
See the kit →Online courseAI for Marketing course
Its graded ad test kit and campaign insight one-pager train the same test, read and decide loop on your own brand's data.
See the course →AssessAll assessmentCritical Reasoning Assessment
A timed reasoning assessment that shows how well someone draws sound conclusions from data, the skill behind the learning-from-data score.
Take the assessment →Bodhih TrainingCorporate training by Bodhih Training
For a facilitated marketing planning or analytics workshop that uses the simulation as its practice round.
Talk to Bodhih Training →Related simulations
How much does Launch Budget Split cost for one person?
It costs $12 for one person. Pay online and play it in your Bodhih account straight away. It is sold as a single simulation, not part of a pack.
What is the price for a marketing team?
Seats cost $12 each, with volume tiers for larger teams. Up to 25 seats can be bought online. For more seats, a facilitated workshop or a university licence, request a quote: we invoice and activate seats when payment arrives.
How long does it take?
About 15 minutes for three flights, the brief and the debrief.
What do I get?
The simulation with its charts and flight-by-flight tables, a score out of 100 with three sub-scores, a debrief that reveals the true channel ranking and the surprise winner, and a credential at 80 or more.
Can I play again?
Yes. Each play is a new seeded scenario: channel strengths, saturation points and the surprise winner change, so a mix that worked last time may not work again.
Is there a credential?
Yes. Score 80 or more and you earn the Arena Micro-sim Mastery credential for Launch Budget Split, an Open Badges 3.0 credential with a public verification page and Add to LinkedIn.
Can it be assigned through our LMS?
Yes. It launches from Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard and D2L via LTI 1.3 with grade passback, and it can be a stage in a Bodhih learning pathway.
What device do I need?
A modern browser on a laptop, desktop or tablet. Phones work, but the allocation controls and results tables are more comfortable on a larger screen.
Who is it for?
Brand, product and performance marketers, marketing heads who set budgets, founders running their own launches, and marketing and MBA students.
How does it differ from a marketing case study?
A case study shows how another brand split its budget. Here you split your own, read the results, move money and see exactly how close you came to the best use of the same $600k.
What happens to my data?
Your allocations and scores are kept in your Bodhih account for you and, in a company account, your admins to review. See bodhih.org/privacy.
Can I get a refund?
Refunds follow the policy at bodhih.org/refunds.
Spend $600k you do not have to explain to finance
Find the channels that really work, shift in steps and keep the brand growing while you do it. Test before you commit, then see how close your split came to the best one. Buy a seat for yourself, or seats for the team that owns your next launch.
Want a feel for Arena first? Play the free 3-round Price War.
- Play it as often as you like for 12 months: every play is a new scenario
- A debrief after each play: what happened, why, and what strong players do
- A verifiable credential when you score 80 or more
- Scored on the server, mapped to the Bodhih Competency Spine
Not sure yet? Try the free 3-round Price War first, no sign-up.
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