Ad Budget Battle: free marketing game to learn paid ads and ROAS

What is Ad Budget Battle?

Seven made-up shops hand you their ad budget: candles, plants, socks, backpacks. Split it between made-up channels like SearchSpot, Scrollgram and Mailbird, run a test week, read what each channel brought, then launch the real week and beat the target cost per sale or return on ad spend.

Ad Budget Battle is a free marketing game about paid ads. Seven made-up shops, from a candle maker to a backpack brand, hand you their weekly ad budget. Split it between made-up channels such as SearchSpot search ads, Scrollgram feed ads or a Mailbird newsletter sponsorship, run a test week, and read what each channel brought back.

Then move the money and launch the real week. Each round has a target: a cost per sale (ad money spent ÷ sales) to beat, or a ROAS (return on ad spend: sales revenue ÷ ad money) to reach. Every channel has diminishing returns, so splitting evenly never wins: you have to put each dollar where it still buys the most.

At a glance

Category

Skillz

Difficulty

Hard

Play time

4–6 min

Price

Free, in your browser, sign-up optional

How to play

Split the money

Move each channel's slider, or use − and +, in $100 steps. Every dollar must be spent before you launch.

Test, then launch

The test week shows sales, cost per sale and ROAS per channel, as a chart or a table. Adjust, then launch the real week.

Mind the curve

Every channel fills up: the first $100 buys plenty of sales, the tenth far fewer. Put each dollar where it still buys the most.

Score

Beat the target: 100 points plus up to 150 for getting close to the best split, more each round. A miss costs one of 3 lives.

Scoring

Beat the round's target cost per sale or ROAS in the real week to score 100 points, plus up to 150 for getting close to the best possible split. Points grow by 25% each round.

A missed target costs one of 3 lives. Seven shops, with more channels and tighter targets each round.

What it trains

Paid ads and ROAS

Cost per sale = spend ÷ sales; ROAS = revenue ÷ spend.

Diminishing returns

Putting the next $100 where it still buys the most.

Reading results

Using a test week to decide where the money goes.

Strategy and tips

Read the blurbs

"Fills up fast" means the first dollars are cheap but more money soon stops working. "Barely slows down" can take big budgets.

Think about the next $100

What matters isn't a channel's average cost per sale but what the next $100 would buy there.

Use the test week

Compare cost per sale per channel. A channel that's still cheap at its spend probably deserves more.

Revenue beats volume in ROAS rounds

When buyers spend different amounts, one big order can be worth more than two small ones.

Learn from the best split

After each round the game shows the best possible split and where your next $100 would have done the most.

Why play Ad Budget Battle?

Every business that buys ads faces the same puzzle: a limited budget, several channels, and returns that shrink as you spend more. Marketers call it budget allocation, and the core idea, moving money until the next dollar earns about the same everywhere, works for ads, hiring and even study time. Ad Budget Battle lets you practise it in a few minutes with no real money at stake.

Frequently asked questions