How to set your first-year online marketing budget

Step 1: what is one customer worth?

Start with three figures from your own books.

1. Average job or sale value. Look at the last 30 to 50 jobs or sales. Example: $1,200.
2. Gross margin. What is left after materials, direct labour and subcontractors. Example: 40%, so $480 per job.
3. Repeat and referral value. How often does a customer come back or send a friend? If, on average, each new customer leads to one more job within two years, the value roughly doubles to $960.

That last figure is what one new customer is really worth: about $960 in gross profit in this example.

For a café or shop, the same logic applies with smaller numbers and more repeat visits. A customer who spends $15 a visit, with a 60% margin, coming back twice a month for a year, is worth about $216 in gross profit.

Step 2: how much can you pay to win one?

You won't want to spend all of that value on marketing. Many owners are comfortable spending somewhere between a fifth and a third of first-job gross profit to win a new customer, especially if repeat business is strong. Pick a figure you are comfortable with.

Using the example: a third of $480 (first-job gross profit) is $160. That is your maximum cost to acquire one customer.

Now convert it to a maximum cost per enquiry. If you win one job for every three enquiries, you can pay up to $160 ÷ 3 ≈ $53 per enquiry.

That single number lets you judge every channel. If Google Ads delivers enquiries at $40, keep going. If a directory listing costs $600 a month and produces four enquiries, that is $150 each: too expensive at this close rate.

Step 3: how many new customers can you handle?

This is the step most owners skip, and it is where money gets wasted. If your crew is already booked three weeks out, more enquiries only lengthen the wait and frustrate customers.

Be honest. Say you can take on eight more jobs a month without hiring.

Step 4: put it together

Maximum cost per customer × extra customers you can handle = monthly marketing ceiling.

$160 × 8 = $1,280 a month in this example, covering everything: ad spend, tools and any outside help.

That is a ceiling, not a target. In the first months you may spend less while you test. And if you are considering a monthly agency plan, including ours, compare its cost with this ceiling. If the plan costs more than your ceiling, either your numbers need to change (higher job value, better close rate, more capacity) or you should start with lower-cost steps yourself. Our pricing page includes the same affordability test applied to our plans.

Step 5: split it across the year

A first year often looks like this:

Vancouver's seasons matter too. Exterior trades such as painting, landscaping and decks get busy in spring and summer, while roofing, drainage and damp-related searches rise with the autumn rain. Put more of your budget into the weeks just before your busy season, when people start searching, and less into the peak itself, when you are booked anyway.

Step 6: track it, or none of this works

Budgets only help if you know what each dollar produced. The minimum tracking setup:

• Ask every new customer how they found you, and write it down.
• Use a separate tracking number on your website so website calls can be told apart from map listing calls.
• Check your Google Business Profile performance numbers monthly.
• Record ad spend and enquiries from each campaign, and target only the areas you serve using Google's location targeting settings.
• Review every quarter. Calculate cost per enquiry and cost per customer for each channel, and move money toward the cheapest sources of good customers.

Common budget mistakes

• Copying a competitor's spend. Their job value, margin and capacity are different from yours.
• Spreading too thin. Five channels with $200 each rarely beat one or two done properly.
• Stopping too early. A two-week ad test on a small budget tells you very little.
• Forgetting the phone. If calls go unanswered, every channel looks worse than it is.
• Paying for "exposure". If a channel can't tell you how many enquiries it produced, treat it with suspicion.

Worksheet

Fill in the blanks:

1. Average job or sale value: $____
2. Gross margin: % → first-job gross profit: $
3. Share you will spend to win a customer (e.g. one third): $____ per customer
4. Close rate (jobs won ÷ enquiries): ____ → maximum cost per enquiry: $____
5. Extra customers you can handle each month: ____
6. Monthly marketing ceiling (line 3 × line 5): $____

Keep this sheet and update it every quarter. Your numbers will move as prices, crew size and close rates change, and the ceiling should move with them. An owner who checks these six lines four times a year will make better marketing decisions than one who reads every new tactic online. If you would like a second opinion on your numbers, the contact page explains what to send. You might also find our guide on marketing in a renter-majority city useful when deciding which customers to aim at.