eCommerce Marketing Plan Template
Most marketing plans are a list of channels with adjectives attached. This one starts with the numbers you already have, forces three objectives rather than nine, asks what the commercial maths actually allows, and contains a section for what you are deliberately not doing. Two files, because a plan and a budget are different jobs.
FORMAT
DOCX + XLSX
CONTAINS
9 sections, 3 tabs
LAST UPDATED
September 2026
LICENCE
Free, unrestricted
A plan that excludes nothing has chosen nothing.
- Why this one
Two files, because a plan and a budget are different jobs
Nobody enjoys writing a positioning statement inside a spreadsheet cell, and nobody should total a media budget by hand in Word.
A plan is a set of decisions about what not to do. The rest is a channel list.
The plan is a document: baseline, segments, positioning, objectives, the commercial constraint, the channel plan, the quarters, what you are not doing, and how you will know it worked. The budget is a workbook: twelve months by channel, with totals, share and implied revenue calculating themselves.
The order matters more than the format. Section one is the baseline, and section five is the commercial constraint, and both come before the channel plan — because what the maths allows decides what the channel plan is permitted to say. Most templates put channels first, which is why most plans are a wish list with a budget attached afterwards.
- Three objectives maximum, each with a baseline and a date
- Break-even ROAS before any channel target is written
- A section for what you are deliberately not doing
- Unknown is an allowed answer, and it counts as a finding
- Implied revenue calculated from your own targets, not forecast
The workbook deliberately calculates implied revenue rather than predicting it. It tells you what your own ROAS targets commit you to, which is useful precisely because it is often larger than anyone in the room expected.
- What is inside
Two files
One to write in, one to calculate in. Both free, neither gated.
The plan document
Nine sections with prompts you delete as you answer them, five ready-made tables, and a checklist to run before you circulate it.
- Baseline table of thirteen measures, with a confidence column
- Segments, positioning and the uncomfortable questions under each
- Objectives, the commercial constraint, the channel plan
- Quarterly themes, what you are not doing, and the review rhythm
The budget workbook
Twelve channel rows across twelve months, with totals, share and implied revenue calculating themselves. Fifty working formulas on the budget tab alone.
- Channels typed as media, production, platform, people or reserve
- Total, share of budget and implied revenue per channel
- A summary that separates media spend from everything else
- A targets tab that calculates the change each objective asks for
Delete every channel row you are not resourcing. A shorter budget is a better plan, and an unresourced channel on a page makes the plan look fuller than it is.
- The document
Nine sections, in this order
The order is the argument. Channels come sixth because what the maths allows decides what the channel plan can say.
Section
What it asks for
Why it is here
1. Where you are now
Thirteen measures with a source and a confidence rating against each
Everything later is measured against these. Unknown is an allowed answer, and every unknown is a finding.
2. Who you are selling to
Two or three segments, and what each compares you against
A segment you cannot reach differently from another is a description, not a segment.
3. Why anyone chooses you
One sentence a customer would repeat, and the evidence on the site today
The section most plans skip by writing quality and service, both of which your competitors also claim.
4. Objectives
Three at most, each with measure, baseline, target, date and owner
Growing revenue is not an objective. Growing revenue while holding contribution above a stated figure is.
5. The commercial constraint
Margin after returns, break-even ROAS, budget split, and what you would cut first
Before the channel plan, because it decides what the channel plan is allowed to promise.
6. Channel plan
One paragraph per channel: the job, the owner, the cost, the success measure, the stop condition
Only for channels you will resource. Delete the rest.
7. The plan by quarter
A theme per quarter, the trading moments, and what has to happen
Planned backwards from peaks. Search content needs six to twelve weeks before the demand arrives.
8. What you are not doing
Channels, markets, categories and last year work you are not repeating
The section that makes the rest credible. Without it, everyone assumes their own priority is still in scope.
9. How you will know it worked
The review rhythm, the one number, and what would make you abandon the plan
Agreed now, while nobody is defensive about the numbers.
Aim for eight pages. A thirty-page plan is a plan nobody has read to the end of, including the person who wrote it.
- How to use it
Writing it in the right order
A day for the first draft if the baseline numbers exist. A week if they do not, and that week is the most valuable part.
01
Fill the baseline table first, honestly
Thirteen measures, with a source and a confidence rating. Write unknown where you do not know, rather than an estimate that later gets quoted as fact. The unknowns usually turn out to be the most useful output of the exercise.
02
Work out break-even before you write any target
Gross margin after returns, then one divided by that. The break-even ROAS calculator does it in a few seconds. Every channel target in the plan is a guess until this number exists.
03
Cut the objectives down to three
Nine objectives is no objectives. If everything on the list is a priority then the person doing the work will choose for you, and they will choose the easiest.
04
Build the budget before the channel paragraphs
Put the numbers in the workbook and look at the implied revenue figure. If it is larger than anything the business has ever done, the plan needs changing now rather than in April.
05
Write section eight before you circulate it
What you are not doing. This is the section people skip and the one that determines whether the plan actually constrains anything.
06
Run the pre-circulation checklist
Five checks at the end of the document: every objective has a baseline and an owner, every channel has a budget line, section eight is not empty, and the workbook total matches section five.
Review quarterly against section nine rather than rewriting annually. A plan rewritten from scratch each year teaches you nothing about the last one.
- Getting it wrong
Six ways marketing plans fail
None of these are failures of ambition. They are failures of subtraction.
A channel list with adjectives
Every channel included, each described enthusiastically, none owned or costed. It reads as thorough and commits to nothing.
Nine objectives
If everything is a priority, whoever does the work chooses, and they choose the easiest. Three is the working maximum and two is often better.
Targets set before break-even is known
A ROAS target chosen because it sounds ambitious is a decision to buy revenue at an unknown margin. Break-even is one divided by gross margin, after returns.
No section on what you are not doing
Without it every stakeholder assumes their own priority survived, and the first quarter is spent discovering otherwise.
Forecasts presented as plans
A number built from assumptions nobody wrote down cannot be reviewed. State the arithmetic, or state that you do not know.
Written once, never reviewed
A plan with no review rhythm is a document. Section nine exists to fix that before anyone is defensive about the numbers.
If the plan you have now has no section eight and no review rhythm, those two additions are worth more than a rewrite.
DOWNLOAD
eCommerce Marketing Plan — DOCX
Nine sections with prompts you delete as you answer them, five tables to fill in, and a pre-circulation checklist. Written to produce eight pages rather than thirty.
FORMAT
DOCX document
SECTIONS
9, plus a final check
TABLES
5, ready to fill
LICENCE
Free, commercial use
No email address, no sign-up and no watermark. The prompts are meant to be deleted as you answer them.
DOWNLOAD
eCommerce Marketing Budget — XLSX
Twelve channel rows across twelve months. Totals, share of budget and implied revenue calculate themselves, and the summary separates media spend from production, platforms and people.
FORMAT
XLSX spreadsheet
TABS
Read me, Budget, Targets
FORMULAS
64, all working
LICENCE
Free, commercial use
Enter a target ROAS only against media rows. Implied revenue is spend multiplied by that target, so a ROAS against a tools line would be meaningless.
- Questions
Marketing plan FAQs
What people ask before downloading it.
Why are there two files?
Because a plan and a budget are different jobs. Nobody enjoys writing a positioning statement inside a spreadsheet cell, and totalling a media budget by hand in Word is how errors get circulated. The document refers to the workbook in section five; the workbook has nothing to say about positioning.
How long should an eCommerce marketing plan be?
About eight pages. A thirty-page plan is one nobody has read to the end of, including the person who wrote it. If a section needs more room it is probably a separate document, not a longer plan.
What goes in the section on what you are not doing?
Channels you are deliberately not opening and why, markets you are not entering yet, categories you will stop supporting with media, and work you did last year that you are not repeating. It is the section that makes everything else credible.
What if I do not have the baseline numbers?
Write unknown. It is an allowed answer and it is more useful than an estimate, because estimates get quoted back as facts six months later. The list of unknowns is often the most valuable output of a first plan.
Is implied revenue a forecast?
No, and the workbook says so. It is your media spend multiplied by the ROAS targets you entered, which makes it a consequence of your own numbers rather than a prediction. It is useful because it is often larger than anyone in the room expected.
How many objectives should I set?
Three at most, and two is often better. Nine objectives is no objectives: whoever does the work will choose which ones matter, and they will choose the easiest.
Does this work for a marketplace-first business?
Yes. The baseline, constraint and quarterly sections apply unchanged. In the channel plan you will delete more rows than a direct-to-consumer store would and write more under marketplace advertising.
Can I use it for a client?
Yes, commercially, with no attribution required and nothing to accept. Rename it, strip our wording, put your own logo on it.
- Keep going
Related templates and tools
TEMPLATE
Where the baseline table in section one gets its numbers, calculated through to contribution margin.
TEMPLATE
What section seven turns into once the quarterly themes are agreed: 52 dated weeks with the trading dates in.
TOOL
The number section five will not let you skip, from your own margin and return rate.
Written the plan and want it pressure-tested?
A strategy call is an hour with the people who would run it, spent on whether the objectives are achievable with the budget rather than on whether the document is well written.