The 7 data points that support your 2027 marketing plan

The marketing planning data that support a defensible budget are seven: historical investment by channel, CAC and LTV by source, conversion by funnel stage, seasonality, average ticket, sales cycle, and the source of the customers actually won. None of them is exotic. The work is in gathering seven pieces of information that today live in different places and almost never talk to each other. Calculating is the easy part.

Below, each one with three practical pieces of information: where it usually sits in your operation, what usually breaks when you put everything together, and what to do when the data simply does not exist.

1. Historical investment by channel

How much went into each channel, month by month, over the last twelve months. It is the baseline for next year's budget.

Where it is: in each platform's ad account, each with its own date range and billing currency.

What breaks: the Meta Ads total and the Google Ads total rarely match what finance paid, because invoices, fees, and exchange rates come into the calculation.

If it does not exist: pull the payment statement for the last year and distribute it by channel.

2. CAC and LTV by source

How much it costs to win a customer in each channel and how much that customer returns over the relationship.

Where it is: the cost in the media platform, the revenue in the CRM or ERP, and the bridge between the two usually in a spreadsheet.

What breaks: CAC calculated on leads rather than on customers.

If it does not exist: start with the CAC of a single channel, the one with the highest investment.

3. Conversion by funnel stage

The pass-through rate from one stage to the next, and not just the conversion from top to close.

Where it is: in the CRM stages, when the sales team moves the card with discipline.

What breaks: stages that mean different things to different people.

If it does not exist: before measuring, agree on what each stage means.

4. Seasonality

The shape of the year: in which months demand goes up, in which it drops, and by how much.

Where it is: in the history of leads and closed sales by month, ideally covering two years.

What breaks: confusing the seasonality of the market with the seasonality of your investment.

If it does not exist: use the company's revenue history.

Resource · In PortuguesePrompt Guide for Marketing and Sales70 prompts with questions about marketing, sales and behavior to ask your data.Download the guide

5. Average ticket by channel

The average value of a closed deal, broken down by lead source.

Where it is: in the deal value inside the CRM, when someone fills in that field consistently.

What breaks: the source gets lost on the way between the lead and the closed deal.

If it does not exist: carry the source over to a CRM field that is not erased on conversion.

6. Sales cycle

How many days go from first contact to close, by channel and by ticket range.

Where it is: in the difference between the lead creation date and the closing date, both in the CRM.

What breaks: first contact is almost never the lead creation date.

If it does not exist: measure the average cycle of deals won in the last six months.

7. Source of the customers won

Where, specifically, the people who bought came from. It is the data that closes the other six.

Where it is: in the join between media attribution and the closing status in the CRM.

What breaks: the same customer appears as two or three records.

If it does not exist: list by hand the customers won in the last quarter and mark the source of each one.

Where to start when all seven are missing

Seeing all seven at once usually triggers the wrong reaction, which is to open a front for each one. There is an order that pays off more within the September and October window.

First, investment by channel. It is the only one of the seven you can close in a few hours, because the data exists and is accessible. It is also the denominator of almost all the others.

Then, the source of the customers won. Even done by hand, for a single quarter, this list changes the budget conversation more than any other.

Last, the rest. Average ticket, sales cycle, and conversion by stage depend on the CRM being filled in with some discipline.

Seasonality is left out of this order on purpose: it comes from the history and does not depend on any fix right now.

Frequently asked questions

When should I start gathering marketing planning data? In September, because the budget discussion usually happens between October and December.

How much history do I need? Twelve months works for investment, CAC, and ticket. For seasonality, two years.

What if half of this data does not exist? Work with what exists and record the gaps explicitly in the plan.

Do I need all seven to plan? No. With investment by channel and the source of customers won, you already move beyond guesswork.

Where marketing planning data come together

Did you notice that the problem repeats? In almost every item, the data exists somewhere, and what is missing is the link between the media record, behavior on the website, and the deal in the CRM. That is why the list of marketing planning data usually gets stuck at the stitching, far more than at collection.

It is worth remembering that the cost of getting this stitching wrong shows up the following year: HubSpot's 2026 Marketing and Sales Report points out that most Brazilian companies did not reach the previous year's goals, and a good part of that begins with a plan built on an uncertain base.

At Laiki, this stitching is the platform's default: paid media, website, and CRM enter a single database, with automatically organized UTMs and the records of the same customer unified into a single profile. The seven data points stop being seven reports.

Before opening the 2027 budget spreadsheet, it is worth standardizing naming and tracking. Download the Data Management Playbook and also check the Metrics Guide.