“How much should we spend?” is usually the first question about paid campaigns, and the honest answer is: it depends. But “it depends” is not a plan. This is the approach we use to turn it into one.
Start from the goal, not the platform
A budget only makes sense against an outcome. Before choosing channels, agree what a successful campaign should produce — enquiries, booked calls, sales, sign-ups — and what that outcome is worth to the business. Knowing roughly what a new customer is worth tells you how much you can afford to spend to win one.
Work backwards from what a result costs
Once you know the goal, estimate the path to it. How many clicks does it usually take to get an enquiry on your site? How many enquiries become customers? Your own historical data is the best guide. If you have none, start with conservative assumptions and treat the first weeks as a way to replace guesses with real numbers.
Give the campaign enough room to learn
Spreading a small budget across too many channels, audiences, and ads means none of them gathers enough data to tell you anything. It is usually better to:
- Start with one or two channels where your audience is most clearly present.
- Focus on a small number of well-defined audiences or keyword themes.
- Run fewer ads, with clear differences between them, so tests are meaningful.
Set a test period and a review point
Agree up front how long the first phase will run and what you will look at when it ends. This avoids two common mistakes: switching campaigns off before they have had a chance to learn, and leaving underperforming campaigns running because nobody scheduled a review.
Make sure you can measure it
A budget is only useful if you can see what it produced. Before launch, check that conversions are tracked properly — for example with GA4 and Google Tag Manager — and that a “conversion” means a genuine completed action, not just a button click.
Scale on evidence
When the data shows a campaign is producing results at a cost the business is comfortable with, increase spend gradually and keep watching the numbers. When it isn’t, change one thing at a time — audience, message, landing page — before deciding to spend more.
If you’d like help planning a first budget, our Performance Marketing team can walk through it with you.