“How much should I spend?” is usually the second question I get asked about ads, right after “will it work?” The honest answer is that it depends. But it depends on a few things you can actually work out, so let’s do that.
Start with what a customer is worth
Not what a single job is worth. What a customer is worth over time. A one-off job might be £300, but if a happy customer comes back every year and tells two friends, they’re worth a lot more than that.
Once you know that number, you know how much you can afford to pay to win one new customer and still be glad you did.
Then work out how many enquiries it takes
Out of every ten people who get in touch, how many book? If it’s three, you need roughly three or four enquiries for every new customer. That’s your target.
A worked example
These numbers are made up, but the sum works the same for any business:
- A new customer is worth around £600 to you
- You’d happily spend £150 to win one
- You convert about a third of enquiries, so each enquiry is worth about £50
- If your clicks cost around £3 and about one in fifteen visitors gets in touch, each enquiry costs roughly £45
In that example the maths works, just. Better landing pages or a higher conversion rate would make it work comfortably. That’s why I always look at the website as well as the ads.
Why tiny budgets often fail
Click prices vary hugely by trade and area. If your budget only buys a handful of clicks a week, it takes months to learn anything, and it’s easy to give up just before it starts working. It’s usually better to target a smaller area or fewer services with enough budget behind them than to spread a little money everywhere.
On Meta it’s even more noticeable. With small budgets, every time you change the audience, budget or creative, the platform starts learning again from scratch. Fiddling is the quickest way to waste a small budget. Set it up properly and leave it alone long enough to learn.
Give it time
The first few weeks are about learning: which searches bring good enquiries, which ones to block, which ads people respond to. I’d judge any campaign over two or three months, not two or three weeks.
Ad spend is separate from management
Whoever runs your ads, check what you’re paying for. With me, the £1,000 for three months is for the work. Your ad spend goes straight to Google or Meta on your own card, in your own account, so you keep the data and the history whatever happens.
On our first call we’ll agree a sensible starting budget for your area and what a customer is worth to you. If it’s too low to work, I’ll tell you rather than take your money. Here’s how the three months work.
