Marketing %

[TranceAvia]

Hi all - how much roughly is the right % of marketing spend you have found works? i.e. % of income?

[JumboShrimp]

Hi all - how much roughly is the right % of marketing spend you have found works? i.e. % of income?

No more than 5% of revenue

[knobbygb]

It really does depend where you are in the game and what kind of routes you are running.  With a mainly long-haul airline, marketing will be lower because it depends on the total number of destinations.  If you are running loads of short routes, it will likely be higher. 

For example, in my game out of Japan, I serve 240 airport (three quarters with wide-body) and I have a 100% CI with marketing just under 1.9% of my revenue. In the Euro challenge I only have a CI of 90% and I'm spending nearly 5% of my revenue because I fly to 360 destinations, all with medium aircraft.  The second example is further skewed because I have many routes running at 140% to 180% of default pricing.  In a game with more competition, I'd have far less revenue from those routes and would expect to be spending more like 8% on marketing.

You'll spend a lot more early in the game when your routes are yet to mature - maybe more than 10%, but I really try to cap it at that!

Remember that it's not all about chasing a high CI, so you can't do it just by aiming for a percentage.  If you have little competition, or are just competing with smaller vs larger aircraft to gain a frequency advantage, you may be quite OK with a CI as low 30%. In those situations it probably doesn't make sense to be spending too much on marketing just for the sake of it. Trying to fill C and F class seating, flying long haul or ULH and competing for cargo (especially Heavy) are some things that would for sure require a larger CI.