You’re wasting 80% of your marketing budget without realising it.
Or more accurately:
20% of your marketing budget is generating 80% of your results.
How do I know?
You can thank Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist from the late 19th century.
In 1896, Pareto made a simple but groundbreaking observation. 80% of the land in Italy was owned by just 20% of the population.
He soon realised this pattern wasn’t limited to wealth—it showed up everywhere. In business, economics, and even nature, a small percentage of inputs consistently led to the majority of results.
This became known as the Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 Rule.
What makes the 80/20 rule so powerful is that it applies infinitely.
When you drill down into any 20%, another 80/20 pattern emerges.
Let’s say you identify the top 20% of your marketing efforts that drive 80% of your results.
Now, if you focus only on that 20% and drill down again, you’ll find that within that, another 80/20 split exists.
This means that a mere 4% of your total marketing efforts could be responsible for more than 50% of your success.
Think about that for a second—half your results coming from just a fraction of what you do.
Why This Matters for Your Business
Most companies don’t realise they’re running campaigns, strategies, or entire channels that contribute almost nothing to their bottom line. They keep spending on them because it feels productive, not because it is productive.
The truth is, if you apply the 80/20 lens to your marketing:
✅ You’ll quickly see which campaigns, audiences, and platforms are making a real impact.
✅ You’ll stop wasting money on what isn’t working.
✅ You’ll free up time and resources to double down on what actually moves the needle.
Applying the 80/20 Rule to Your Marketing
- Audit your campaigns – Look at your data. Which ads, keywords, and channels are actually driving conversions, not just vanity metrics?
- Cut the dead weight – Stop throwing money at underperforming efforts, no matter how much time you’ve invested in them.
- Scale what works – Once you’ve found your high-performing 20%, reallocate budget and resources to amplify those efforts.
- Keep refining – Run the 80/20 filter again and again. The deeper you go, the more you uncover.
The Bottom Line
If marketing feels expensive and unpredictable, chances are you’re spreading yourself too thin. The answer isn’t to do more—it’s to double down on what works and cut what doesn’t.
Most businesses waste time and money on campaigns that feel productive but don’t actually drive results. The 80/20 rule gives you a way out.
The real question is—do you know which 20% is making the difference?
