# Budget allocator — Real estate

The budget allocator with three columns an agency needs: which listing or office a share belongs to, how much of it the vendor is funding, and which market it is being spent into.

Everything else is the general allocator, unchanged. One row per destination, a basis for every share, a floor and a ceiling, and a reallocation rule written before it is needed.

## How to use it

1. Copy this file, or the CSV version if you would rather work in a sheet.
2. List the destinations first, at the level the argument is actually being had.
3. Write the basis for each row before the number, and keep measured performance, bets and commitments in separate rows.
4. Set floors before shares: a destination that cannot clear its floor should not be in the split at all.
5. Fill Share of total so the column sums to one whole, per currency.
6. Write the reallocation rule now, while nothing is going wrong.
7. Re-argue each row on its own cadence, and record what changed and why.

## The columns

**Allocation name** (Text). What this split is called and the period it covers, usually a month, because an agency's account turns over with its listings rather than with a quarter.

**Destination** (Text). What the share goes to: a listing, a stage of a listing's campaign, or the office's own presence. One listing per row, because one vendor is paying for it.

**Basis** (Text). What the share rests on: a vendor marketing agreement, which is a fixed commitment rather than a performance decision, or measured performance for the office's own rows.

**Share of total** (Percent). This row's proportion of the total. It is worth reading for one reason above all: how much of the office's advertising is the office's own money rather than somebody else's.

**Amount (minor units)** (Integer). The share as money, in the smallest unit of its currency, as a whole number, and never more than the vendor marketing agreement for that listing allows.

**Currency** (ISO 4217 code). The ISO 4217 code the destination bills in, and the one the vendor's agreement is written in. A report to a vendor is always in their own currency.

**Floor (minor units)** (Integer). The least this listing can hold and still be visible in its corridor. Below it the property is present and unseen, which is the worst outcome for the vendor and the agency at once.

**Ceiling (minor units)** (Integer). The most this listing can absorb before the money buys frequency against a small pool of plausible buyers. Property audiences saturate faster than most, and a large vendor budget will reach it.

**Reallocation rule** (Text). What has to be true for money to move, and the answer for a vendor-funded row is that it does not move to another listing at all. Within a listing, between placements, it can move freely.

**Review cadence** (Text). How often this row is re-argued. Weekly during a campaign, because a listing flight is short enough that a fortnightly rhythm would review it once.

**Evidence** (Text). What the share rests on, named: the vendor marketing agreement and its date, or for an office row, what recent campaigns in this corridor and bracket have cost.

**Owner** (Text). The person who defends the size of this row, which for a listing is the agent who signed the vendor to the agreement.

**Notes** (Text). What the next person needs: how much of this row the vendor is funding, the corridor it is spent into, the office row whose metric is appraisals rather than enquiries.

**Listing or office** (Text). What this share belongs to: a named listing, a development, or the office's own presence. It is the column that decides who the row's spend is answerable to.

**Vendor funded** (Text). How much of this row the vendor is paying, as a proportion or an amount. Money that is not the agency's is not available for reallocation, whatever the performance says.

**Market** (Text). The suburb, corridor or region this share is spent into. In property the market is close to an audience definition, and two markets rarely share a cost per enquiry.

## The budget allocator

| Allocation name | Destination | Basis | Share of total | Amount (minor units) | Currency | Floor (minor units) | Ceiling (minor units) | Reallocation rule | Review cadence | Evidence | Owner | Notes | Listing or office | Vendor funded | Market |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |

## Before you commit it

- Every row names a listing or the office, and states how much of it is vendor funded.
- Vendor-funded rows are marked as unavailable for reallocation.
- Shares sum to one whole per currency.
- Every listing row has a floor set from what a campaign in that bracket actually needs.
- Office presence sits in its own rows with its own metric.
- Every market is named, and no two markets share a row.
- Anything that is an assumption says so, in Notes, in words.