“As a CMO, I need to manage several versions of the same budget to prevent salary exposure”
Sharing a single spreadsheet often means exposing sensitive info across the board. Creating multiple docs for different team members? That’s a recipe for confusion and lost data.
“We have a dedicated team member responsible just for chasing monthly spend actuals.”
Every month, it’s the same scramble: emailing the team for spend updates, consolidating entries, and hoping no one forgets. This manual process drains time and invites errors.
“It's difficult to adjust the budget on-the-fly with confidence about the actual spend in the exact moment”
With Google Sheets, you’re constantly playing catch-up. If you rely on manual data entry, your numbers could be outdated the moment you share them—especially for fast-moving ad spends.
“As a marketing team, we spend too much time managing the budget”
As your channels and team members grow each year you spend more and more time preparing the perfect marketing budget. Then you need to adjust it every quarter. We did it as well - it was painful.
Etropo vs. Google Sheets: Is it for me?
Google Sheets is a great starting point for basic marketing budgets. But if you need to collaborate with your marketing team on budgets, make more informed decisions about allocation, or simply spend less time on marketing operations, Etropo is a great choice.
- Fully customizable for any team
- Access Rights per Sheet
- Create charts manually
- Data Export
- Manual Data Entry
- Native Slack Reminders
- AI Budget Creation
Who is Google Sheets suitable for?
Google Sheets is an accessible, cost-effective option for marketing teams with basic budgeting needs. If you're a solo-entrepreneur only tracking a few expenses and don't mind manual processes—or you have a very small team—it can work just fine. However, as your team grows, managing budget in Google Sheets becomes more painful and less transparent over-time. After all marketing budget is a strategical tool of any CMO.
Who needs a dedicated marketing budget tool?
When choosing between Etropo and Google Sheets, think about how much time you spend managing your marketing budget. Etropo is built with CMOs in mind. It provides built-in integrations, granular user permissions, and real-time insights— features that can save marketing teams hours each month. Google Sheets might suffice for basic scenarios, but it lacks capabilities that save time of marketing teams and enable you to make more informed strategic decisions. Etropo was built so that CMOs can focus on strategy and the quality of actual execution. Not operations.
Plan More Effectively
Jump-start your marketing plan with an AI-generated budget or import your existing Google Sheets. Customize each line item with granular permissions and properties, so everyone sees exactly what they need—no more, no less.
AI Budget Creator: Generate your first draft in 75 seconds
Automated existing budget import - takes 45 seconds
Granular Access Controls: Protect sensitive data
Instant data visualization - spend over time, category breakdown
Analyze & adjust budget faster
Keep your budgets up to date with automated reminders. Etropo integrates with Slack to collect actuals and automatically pulls ad spend from Google Ads. Track your entire budget with intuitive dashboards and forecast changes on the fly.
Slack Integration: Get monthly actuals from your team
Google Ads Sync: Weekly automated spend updates
Dashboards: Analyze spend by channel or category
Forecasting: Adjust spend and see real-time impact
Ready to Ditch Spreadsheets?
Stop juggling endless copies and outdated data. Switch to a dedicated budget tool that saves your team hours each week.