Marketing activities such as vehicle display events, roadshows, newspaper advertisements, exhibitions, digital campaigns, and promotional events require financial planning before they are executed. To effectively monitor marketing expenses and control spending, dealerships allocate a predefined budget for these activities.
In GainDMS, a Marketing Budget serves as the financial source for campaigns. Every campaign created in the system must be associated with an active budget. This ensures that marketing expenses are planned, tracked, and managed efficiently throughout the campaign lifecycle.
This article explains how to create a Marketing Budget in GainDMS.
A marketing budget allows the dealership to reserve funds for promotional activities and ensures that campaigns are created only within an approved financial limit.
By maintaining budgets in the system, dealerships can:
Plan marketing expenditure in advance.
Allocate funds for different promotional activities.
Track the utilization of marketing budgets.
Prevent campaigns from being created without an approved budget.
Maintain better financial control over marketing operations.
Since every campaign consumes a portion of the allocated budget, creating a valid budget is the first step before creating any marketing campaign.
To create a new Marketing Budget, follow the navigation path below:
Pre-Sales → Marketing → Campaigns
The Campaign Worksheet will be displayed.
From the Campaign Worksheet, click Quick Link, and then select Budget.
This opens the Budget List Worksheet, where all previously created budgets are displayed.
To create a new budget, click the (+) Add icon.
The Budget Creation screen will open.
The Budget Creation screen allows you to define the financial details that will later be used while creating campaigns.
Begin by entering a meaningful title for the budget.
The title should clearly represent the purpose or duration of the budget so that it can be easily identified in the future.
For example:
Quarterly Budget
Using descriptive names helps users quickly identify the correct budget while creating campaigns.
Specify the From Date and To Date to define the validity period of the budget.
The validity period represents the duration during which the budget remains active and can be utilized for creating marketing campaigns.
For example, if a budget is created for the first quarter of the year, campaigns can only use this budget during that defined period.
Important: Ensure that the campaign dates fall within the budget validity period. Otherwise, the budget cannot be selected while creating the campaign.
Enter the total amount allocated for marketing activities.
This amount represents the maximum budget available for campaigns created under this budget.
As campaigns are created, the corresponding campaign cost is deducted from the available budget balance.
It is recommended to allocate an amount that adequately covers all planned marketing activities for the selected period.
The Remarks field can be used to record additional information about the budget, such as the purpose of the allocation or any internal reference.
Providing remarks is optional and can be left blank if no additional information is required.
After entering all the required information:
Review the budget details.
Click Save.
Once the budget is successfully saved, it will be displayed in the Budget List Worksheet and will become available for selection while creating marketing campaigns.
Suppose a dealership plans several promotional activities during the first quarter of the financial year, including a mall display event, a newspaper advertisement, and a customer engagement roadshow.
Instead of allocating funds separately for each activity, the dealership creates a single budget named Quarterly Budget with a predefined validity period and allocated amount.
When individual campaigns are created, such as a Mall Display Event or Roadshow Campaign, this budget is selected as the funding source. The campaign costs are then adjusted against the available budget balance, allowing the dealership to monitor overall marketing expenditure efficiently.
A Marketing Budget must be created before creating any marketing campaign.
The budget validity period determines when it can be used.
Campaign dates should always fall within the budget validity period.
The budget amount represents the total funds available for marketing activities.
Budget utilization is tracked through the campaigns linked to that budget.
Using meaningful budget titles makes future identification and reporting easier.
If budget is not created than campaign cannot be created.