One of the most common questions I get from Sydney business owners is some version of: "How much should I actually be spending on Facebook and Instagram ads?" There's no single right answer, but there are sensible ranges — and a few mistakes that waste money regardless of budget.
Start with a "test" budget, not a "hero" budget
Before you commit to a big monthly spend, you need data: which audiences respond, which offers convert, which creative gets attention. For most local service businesses, that testing phase works well somewhere in the $500–$800/month range for ad spend, run for at least 3–4 weeks before drawing conclusions.
What a realistic result looks like
- A local trades or services business running $500–$800/month in well-targeted ads can typically expect somewhere in the order of 15–25 leads a month, depending on the industry and offer.
- Cost per lead varies a lot by industry — a $50 cost-per-lead might be excellent for one business and too expensive for another, depending on the value of a job.
- The first 2–3 weeks are almost always about learning, not scaling — expect the numbers to improve as the campaign gathers data.
Common budget mistakes
- Spreading a small budget across too many campaigns or audiences, so nothing gets enough data to optimise
- Judging results after only a few days instead of a few weeks
- Sending ad clicks to a slow, unclear, or non-mobile-friendly website (undoing all the ad spend's good work)
- Not tracking leads properly, so you can't actually tell what's working
A simple way to think about it
Treat your ad spend and your management fee as two separate things: the spend is what buys attention, the management is what makes sure that attention turns into leads instead of wasted clicks. If a business you're considering only talks about one of those, ask about the other.
If you want a second opinion on what a sensible budget looks like for your specific business, that's exactly the kind of thing I go through in a free chat — no pressure, just an honest number.