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5 Min Read
The plan is almost ready to go. Retailer promo slots are booked, the agency has its brief, and the plan goes to the CFO next week. Then finance asks the question every marketing leader expects: “Can we do this for 10% less?”
Most teams answer by taking 10% off every line, because it feels fair and it’s fast. It is also one of the most expensive ways to cut a budget. An even cut takes money from channels that still have room to grow, along with the ones that have none.
Optivos, a commercial intelligence platform developed by Heliosz.AI for consumer brands, helps marketing leaders answer that question with evidence. Your team can model trade, retail media and consumer media together, compare budget scenarios on projected revenue, and agree a plan with finance before any money is committed.
| Who it’s for | CMOs, marketing directors, revenue growth leads and their finance partners |
| The decision | How to allocate, or cut, next period’s budget across trade and media |
| What Optivos provides | One model across trade and media, marginal return curves and scenario simulation |
| The outcome | An approved plan, plus a pre-agreed fallback if budgets tighten mid-year |
The data most marketing leaders plan with wasn’t built for the decision in front of them. Three problems show up in almost every planning cycle.
Average returns hide saturation. Channel reports show the average return on spend, but a budget decision is about the next dollar. A channel with a strong average can be well past the point where extra spend pays back, while a smaller channel still has room to grow. Plans built on averages keep feeding the channels that need money least.
Trade and media are planned apart. For many consumer brands, trade promotion is one of the largest commercial spend lines. Yet it usually sits in the sales budget while media sits with marketing. With two teams working from two plans, there’s no fair way to compare a dollar of trade with a dollar of media.
Short-term reports miss long-term effects. A cut to brand media rarely shows in this quarter’s sales. It tends to appear a few months later, when baseline demand softens. A cut that looks free in the plan can carry a cost nobody sees until next year.
Optivos is designed around the budget decision, so your team sees the trade-offs before spend is locked rather than in a report afterwards.
Trade and media in one model. Trade promotions, retail media and consumer media are measured against the same sales data, so every dollar is compared on equal terms.
Marginal returns instead of averages. Response curves show where each channel sits. It may still be climbing, close to its peak, or past the point where more spend pays back.
Scenarios that respect real limits. Locked retailer commitments, contracted media and minimum spend levels are built in, so every scenario is one your team could actually run.
Ranges and time horizons. Projections come as a likely range rather than a single number, and they include effects that carry into later quarters. Finance sees the uncertainty and the delayed cost of each choice.
The brand and all figures below are illustrative.
Picture a mid-size snack brand with a $10M budget across TV, paid social, search, retail media and trade promotions. Of the trade budget, $1.2M is locked into a joint business plan with its largest retailer. Finance asks what the plan would look like at $9M.
The team builds four scenarios in Optivos:
| Scenario | What changes | Budget | Projected incremental revenue | Incremental revenue per $1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A. Current plan | No change | $10M | $28.0M (range $26.5-29.5M) | $2.80 |
| B. Rebalance | $1.5M moved from TV and paid social, both past their peak, into retail media and search | $10M | $31.0M (range $29.4-32.6M) | $3.10 |
| C. Even 10% cut | 10% off every flexible line, with the $1.2M retailer commitment excluded | $9.12M | $25.6M (range [TBC]) | $2.81 |
| D. Targeted cut | $1M removed from TV and paid social spend beyond their saturation point | $9M | $26.9M (range [TBC]) | $2.99 |
Here’s what the comparison shows:
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Rebalancing is projected to add $3M in revenue on the same budget. TV and paid social were past their peak, so moving money to channels that are still climbing lifts the total. -
How you cut matters as much as how much you cut. The even cut is projected to reduce revenue by $2.4M. The targeted cut is projected to reduce it by $1.1M, less than half as much, even though it removes $120K more spend.
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The even cut can’t reach finance’s target. Because the $1.2M commitment can’t be touched, a flat 10% off the flexible lines only brings the budget down to $9.12M.
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The retailer commitment stays whole. Optivos keeps it fixed in every scenario, so no plan breaks a retailer agreement.
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The delayed cost is visible. Optivos projects that the TV reduction in Scenario D could soften baseline sales slightly over the next two quarters. That cost is part of the plan from day one, so it doesn’t arrive as a surprise next year.
The CMO and CFO review all four scenarios in one meeting. They decide not to cut upfront. Instead they approve Scenario B, the full $10M rebalanced toward retail media and search, because it is projected to return the most per dollar.
They also agree Scenario D as the fallback, with a trigger written into the plan. If first-half sales come in below target, the targeted cut goes ahead. Everyone already knows which spend goes, what it costs, and that the retailer commitment is protected.
This changes how the meeting runs. Marketing no longer has to defend each line, and finance no longer has to guess where to cut. Both teams choose between options they can see side by side.
The example shows four potential benefits of scenario planning with Optivos that a standard budget process may not provide:
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More revenue from the same budget. The rebalanced plan is projected to generate $3M more revenue without extra spend, by moving money away from saturated channels.
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A targeted cut with a smaller revenue impact. If budgets tighten, the targeted cut is projected to preserve $1.3M more revenue than the even cut, on a slightly smaller budget.
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A fallback plan agreed in advance. The mid-year fallback is approved before it’s needed, so your team can respond to budget pressure without scrambling.
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Trade and media evaluated together. Sales and marketing budgets are compared in one view, while the retailer commitment stays protected in every scenario.
Budget calls move away from last year’s split and rounds of negotiation. They move toward a shared view of trade-offs that marketing and finance agree on before spend is committed.
Bring your current plan and the question your finance team is most likely to ask, and we’ll show you the scenarios.