How often should the budget split be revisited?

Every two quarters is a sensible rhythm for the proportions, with the annual review happening alongside the broader marketing plan. Inside a half-year, the proportions should hold steady so the bidders learn off consistent volumes; if you flip the proportions every month, every campaign is permanently in a learning phase.

Should the same split apply to small-budget accounts?

No. Below £6,000 monthly, the split breaks down because no slice is large enough to learn from. The right structure at small budget is two campaigns: one always-on channel where you have signal, and one focused experiment per quarter. Diversifying produces noise; concentrating produces learnings.

How much budget should sit in test-and-learn for maritime accounts?

Between 10% and 20% over a quarter, set against criteria you would actually act on. Quarterly tests beat monthly tests in maritime because the cycles need that long to produce signal. Define the test, define the success metric in advance and judge the test against pre-set criteria rather than against gut feel.

The 60/30/10 paid budget split: when it doesn't apply to maritime

Every paid-media playbook from the last decade ends up at some version of the 60/30/10 rule: 60% of budget on proven performance channels, 30% on scaling tests, 10% on experiments. It is a sensible framework for high-volume, fast-feedback B2C and mid-market B2B. It is a poor framework for maritime.

The reason is that the underlying assumptions of 60/30/10 do not hold:

Assumption: feedback loops are fast. In maritime, feedback loops run six to fifteen months from click to closed-won. By the time a “test” channel has produced enough closed-revenue data to judge, the budget category labels have moved twice.
Assumption: incremental performance scaling is linear. In maritime, the bidding platforms run out of inventory long before the budget runs out. Doubling spend on a working LinkedIn campaign in a tight maritime audience usually produces 1.3x the conversions, not 2x.
Assumption: 10% on experiments is enough signal. In maritime, 10% of a £20,000 monthly budget is £2,000 a month, which on most experimental channels is not enough to gather statistical signal at all.

So what does work?

A better starting frame for maritime

Three categories, but the proportions and the time horizons need adjustment.

Always-on awareness and demand-generation channels. LinkedIn against named accounts and seniority-filtered audiences, YouTube against custom-built audiences, programmatic display against the maritime-news domain inventory. Aim for 40% to 55% of budget here.
Direct-response capture channels. Google search, Microsoft search, brand defence (where justified), high-intent retargeting. Aim for 35% to 45% of budget here.
Test-and-learn budget. New formats, new platforms, new creative directions. 10% to 20%.

The numbers are guides, not rules. The point is that the awareness/demand-gen share is materially higher than 60/30/10 implies, because in a long-cycle market you have to fund pipeline creation continuously rather than relying on direct-response to capture demand that already exists. There is far less existing demand to capture in maritime than in B2C ecommerce; you have to make most of it.

When direct-response should be higher

A few maritime contexts genuinely justify a heavier direct-response weighting:

Replacement parts and consumables for marine equipment. These are searched directly when needed; demand is created by vessel operating life, not by your marketing. Run 60% to 70% of budget on direct-response search and feed.
Emergency and urgent services (salvage, emergency repairs, urgent class-survey scheduling). Demand is event-driven and high-intent. 70% direct-response is reasonable.
Established brands with existing pipeline volume. If you already get 200 inbound enquiries a month from an existing brand position, direct-response becomes the priority because there is real demand to capture.

When awareness should be higher

New service launches. A retrofit-engineering business launching a new ammonia bunkering capability has zero captured demand to recover. 70% to 80% of paid budget should fund category-education and audience-building work for the first six to nine months.
New geographic expansion. Opening an Asian office for a European business that has none of the brand presence in Asia. Awareness-led for the first year.
Long-cycle capital-equipment manufacturers with limited brand recognition. Most demand is created during specification phases that happen quietly inside yards and design houses; awareness-led targeting against those audiences is the only way the demand exists for the direct-response campaigns to capture later.

The test-and-learn category needs care

Test budgets in maritime require a different cadence than in B2C. A LinkedIn audience experiment needs ninety days minimum to produce signal worth acting on. A YouTube category-education test needs six months of view data to inform whether the audience definition was right.

Set test budgets per quarter, not per month. Define success metrics that are realistic for maritime cycles (engaged accounts, brand search lift, audience growth, content interaction depth) rather than expecting closed-won data inside the test period.

What to do if your budget is small

For maritime accounts with budgets below £6,000 a month, the 60/30/10 split breaks down entirely. The right structure at small budget is two campaigns: one always-on channel that you genuinely understand and have signal in, and one focused experiment per quarter. Diversifying across five channels at £1,200 each produces noise; concentrating on two channels at £3,000 each produces learnings.

A prompt, not a rule

The 60/30/10 split is a useful prompt to think about budget allocation, not a rule to follow. In maritime, the right split is whatever the cycle length, the demand state and the available creative actually justify. Recalculate every two quarters; the answer changes as the brand position evolves.