Where should the marketing money go after a Series A?

After a funding round, you put the marketing money into measurement first: what does a won customer cost per channel? Then you build a pipeline you own, with content and SEO on your buyers’ questions. Extra advertising only comes after that. Ads buy time, owned channels build value that stays when the budget stops.

The round closed this week, the press releases are out and the board expects a growth plan. You get the question every founder or first marketer gets at that moment: where does the marketing money go? This is the playbook for those first months, from a growth marketing approach that steers on pipeline, not reach.

Where should the marketing money go first after a Series A?

Don’t immediately put more budget on the channel that works today. First find out why it works. This is how we split the first six months:

If your brand is really holding back your growth, first read when a rebrand after funding makes sense. How to then turn several channels into one growth engine is covered in scale-up marketing.

How much of a funding round usually goes to marketing?

There is no fixed percentage of the round itself. Benchmarks calculate as a percentage of your recurring revenue (ARR). According to SaaS Capital (2026 survey), across more than 1,000 SaaS companies the median spends 8% of ARR on marketing and 15% on sales. Investor-backed companies spend twice as much on marketing as those without investors.

So work backward from your goal, not from the round. How many deals do you need to close within 18 months, and how many opportunities and leads does that take? That calculation is in how many leads you need for your revenue target. A rougher split across channels is in setting your marketing budget.

For reference, our own prices. Content costs 950 euros per month for 5 articles, 2,450 for 15 or 4,500 for 30 in three languages. Lead generation starts at 3,750 euros per month. All with a three-month minimum and no setup fee.

After a seed round: ads first, content first or an SDR first?

That depends on how fast you need pipeline and what a click costs in your category. Across 106 Benelux software search terms, a median click costs about 22 dollars (Google Ads data, September 2026). For “HR software” in the Netherlands it’s 58 dollars, for “helpdesk software” 146 dollars.

Our experience in B2B software with a long sales cycle: content as the foundation and ads, kept narrow, as a bridge. An SDR only comes in once you know which accounts you want. Read more about that trade-off in inbound vs outbound lead generation. Calculate per keyword: in the click-or-article calculator, set your cost per click against the price of an article.

We saw the difference at Kaizo. In September 2025, organic traffic converted 38 times better to key events than paid: 4.6% versus 0.12%. Key events are intent signals, not demo bookings.

How do you quickly build a predictable pipeline after a funding round?

Fast and predictable go together if you build in volume and judge at the right moment:

1. Write on your buyers’ questions, not on broad terms. New pages get more impressions from long questions of 7 words or more. At Hedgehog that’s 19%, versus 10% for older pages.
2. Build in volume. Hedgehog Company started with 18 test articles in English and Dutch: 2,314 impressions and 24 clicks in 19 days. A month later, 77 articles were online, with 6,701 impressions and 42 clicks.
3. Be visible in AI answers. Of 41 new Hedgehog articles, Google showed an AI Overview 31 times on the article’s own question. Hedgehog was cited as a source 23 times.
4. Steer the website on pipeline. At Suivo, pipeline through the website grew by 142%, and 85% of the pipeline came through the web.

According to our Search Console data from six sites, new pages peak in week 1, drop in weeks 2 to 8 and then break through. On customerimpact.be, the level from week 9 onward was about three times higher than in weeks 2 to 8. One of the six sites stayed flat. So judge new content after eight weeks, not after two.

This is the core of the guide to reducing your dependence on Google Ads. If you can’t build that pipeline alongside founder-led sales, read how to move from founder-led sales to marketing.

Which marketing numbers do investors want to see after six months?

Numbers that show growth is repeatable and affordable, so no followers or reach.

Calculate CAC payback with our explanation of the CAC payback period or directly with the CAC calculator. With long cycles, click and deal are months apart: then read how to measure attribution in long B2B sales cycles.

When we’re not the right choice

If you need to show new pipeline within six weeks, content is not the first answer: start with sharp ads on buying intent. If you don’t have product-market fit yet, put the money into customer conversations, not into scale. And if you’re mainly looking for someone to lead your marketing team, read when to hire a fractional growth lead.

Frequently asked questions