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What is a good budget for Facebook ads?
What is a good budget for Facebook ads? Use job value, close rate, lead cost and capacity to set a practical monthly budget for your trade business.
A good Facebook ads budget gives your trade business enough leads to test whether the campaign can win profitable jobs. Set it from the cost you can afford to acquire one customer, your close rate and the number of extra jobs you want.
For example, suppose you can spend $200 to win a job and you close one in four leads. You can afford to pay up to $50 per lead. Winning ten extra jobs would require about 40 leads. At $50 each, the campaign budget would be about $2,000 per month.
That figure is a planning target, not a promise. The real result depends on the service, offer, audience, lead form and sales process. Common figures such as $10 to $50 per day provide context, but they cannot tell you what your business should spend.
What is each completed job worth to your business?
Start with the service you want to sell. A hot water system replacement, bathroom renovation and small repair call-out have different job values and delivery costs. They should not share the same acquisition target simply because the leads come from Facebook.
Work from gross profit rather than revenue. Revenue is the amount the customer pays. Gross profit is what remains after the direct labour, materials and other costs needed to complete the work. A $2,500 sale can look attractive until you account for what the job costs to deliver.
Next, choose the largest advertising cost you would accept to win one completed job. This is your acceptable customer acquisition cost. It must leave enough gross profit to cover overheads and reward the business.
Consider a campaign producing leads for $25. If one in four leads becomes a paying job, the advertising cost to acquire that customer is $100:
Four leads cost $25 each.
Total advertising spend is $100.
One of those leads becomes a job.
The advertising cost per won job is $100.
If the job brings in $2,500, the result may look strong. You still need to check the gross profit. A high-revenue job with costly materials and heavy labour may support less advertising spend than a lower-revenue service with a stronger margin.
In my experience, budget talks become much clearer once the owner names the exact work they want. Asking how much to spend on Facebook is too broad. Asking how much to spend to win one profitable bathroom job gives us a figure we can test.
How do you calculate the monthly campaign budget?
You can calculate a starting monthly budget with four figures: desired jobs, close rate, acceptable acquisition cost and allowable lead cost. Learn more about structuring Facebook ads for tradies.
First, turn the close rate into the number of leads needed for one sale. A one-in-four close rate means you need about four leads to win one job.
Next, divide the acceptable acquisition cost by the number of leads required. If you can pay $200 to acquire a customer and need four leads to do it, the allowable lead cost is $50.
Then multiply the desired number of jobs by the leads needed for each sale. Ten extra jobs at four leads per sale require about 40 leads. Multiply 40 leads by the allowable $50 lead cost and you get a $2,000 monthly campaign budget.
Choose the number of extra jobs wanted each month.
Record the share of suitable leads that become paying jobs.
Set the most you can afford to spend to win one job.
Calculate the allowable lead cost.
Multiply the required leads by that allowable cost.
This method also exposes weak assumptions. If you estimate a one-in-four close rate but the real rate is one in eight, the same lead price doubles your advertising cost per job. If you expect $50 leads but they arrive at $80, the planned budget will buy fewer sales opportunities.
Treat the result as a forecast until real campaign and sales data confirm it. Track what happens after every enquiry. The Facebook dashboard can report a lead, but it cannot tell you by itself whether that person answered the phone, accepted a quote or became a profitable customer.
Convert the monthly total into a daily amount only after doing this work. The daily figure controls pacing. The monthly figure shows whether the campaign has enough money to pursue the actual sales goal.
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Why can the same daily budget work for one tradie and fail for another?
The same spend can buy very different amounts of useful data. Lead cost changes with the service, market, audience, offer, creative and amount of qualification required. A daily amount that produces steady opportunities for one campaign may produce too few enquiries to judge another.
For a bathroom business, I recommended starting at $50 per day. That came to $350 per week and about $1,500 across 30 days. Management fees were separate from that media budget.
We were discussing an expected lead-cost range from $30 to $100. At those figures, a $500 monthly budget offered limited room to generate enquiries and learn whether they turned into work. The issue was not whether Facebook would accept the budget. The issue was whether the spend could produce enough leads to assess suitability and sales conversion.
The $50 daily figure was right for that planning case. It is not a universal minimum. Another business may sell a different service, face a different lead cost or have a stronger close rate.
Before choosing a daily number, estimate how many leads the monthly spend could buy at the lower and upper ends of your expected lead cost. Then ask whether that volume gives the business a useful test. A campaign that produces only a small number of enquiries may leave too much uncertainty. One poor lead or one missed call can distort the result.
Small budgets also force sharper choices. The campaign may need to focus on one service and one clear offer instead of spreading spend across many job types. That is a campaign design decision, not proof that every tradie needs the same minimum spend.
Which number shows whether the advertising is working?
Measure the advertising cost per won job. Cost per lead matters, but a cheap lead has little value when it rarely turns into paid work.
In one hot water campaign, we spent $1,200 over 20 days. That averaged $60 per day or $420 per week. Leads cost about $25, and the client closed around one in four. Using those rounded figures, the advertising cost was about $100 per job.
In a separate North Lakes Plumbing hot water campaign, spending was around $3,000 per month. The campaign generated about 60 leads, which puts the rounded lead cost near $50. The client converted around 60% into jobs. On those rounded figures, the advertising cost per job was about $83.
The first campaign produced the cheaper lead, yet its estimated advertising cost per won job was higher. The comparison does not prove that spending more caused the stronger close rate. These were different campaigns for different clients. The offer, qualifying questions and handling of each enquiry also affected the outcome.
This is why a campaign report needs business data beside platform data. Track:
Total advertising spend.
Leads received.
Leads seeking the correct service.
Quotes issued.
Jobs won.
Revenue and gross profit from those jobs.
Calculate cost per won job by dividing ad spend by the number of jobs sold. Then compare that result with the acceptable acquisition cost set before launch. A lead campaign can look costly inside Facebook while producing profitable customers. Another can display a low lead price while wasting the sales team's time.
How do qualification and follow-up change the budget result?
Your budget buys enquiries. The way you qualify and follow up those people determines how many become customers.
Asking more questions before a person submits a form can filter out unsuitable work. It can also reduce lead volume and raise the cost per lead. Asking fewer questions makes the form easier to complete, but the business may need to spend more time screening people by phone.
Neither setup is automatically better. A busy owner with little phone time may prefer fewer, better-filtered enquiries. A business with a strong office team may be able to handle more contacts and qualify them quickly. The right form reflects how the business sells.
Feedback from the trade business is what makes this decision useful. For each enquiry, record whether the person answered, wanted the advertised service, could afford the work, received a quote and bought. That shows where the result breaks down.
If people want the wrong service, adjust the targeting, offer or ad message. If suitable leads stop responding after a slow callback, fix the response process. If quotes go out but few are accepted, review the sales process and job economics before buying more enquiries.
Facebook campaigns also need changes as results develop. Some run for a while with minor adjustments. Others need new ads or a different approach. Platform numbers alone cannot reveal whether the main problem sits in the advertising or what happens after the lead arrives.
No amount of ad spend can call a prospect, prepare a quote or close a sale. Increasing the campaign budget while those steps are failing gives the business more unfinished sales work.
When should you increase, hold or reduce the budget?
Increase spending only when suitable enquiries are becoming profitable jobs and the business has room to deliver more work. Hold the budget when the evidence is still weak. Reduce it when extra enquiries are creating pressure the team cannot handle.
One decking client received leads for about $30 each. The campaign once spent $50 per day, but the business had a capacity problem. Daily spend was reduced to $20, and the client still struggled to keep up.
He had a crew of about four while also managing the team, quoting new work and handling sales. More leads would have added calls and quotes without fixing the constraint. A larger budget could have made the operation harder to manage.
Check four conditions before increasing spend:
The enquiries are for the work you want.
Your team follows them up reliably.
Won jobs remain profitable after advertising and delivery costs.
You have the labour and time to complete more work.
If all four conditions pass, raise the budget in controlled steps and watch the cost per won job. If lead suitability falls or the team reaches capacity, hold the spend. If follow-up or delivery is already breaking down, reduce it while you fix that part of the business.
Set your next Facebook ads budget by calculating the spend needed for your target number of profitable jobs, then increase it only after your sales data and available capacity support more work.