There’s no single right number for how much a tradie should spend on marketing. A sole trader who’s booked out for months has very different needs from a growing business with three vans to keep busy.
Rules of thumb, like spending a fixed percentage of revenue, can be a starting point, but they don’t account for your trade, your area, or how much work you actually want. A better approach is to work backwards from your own numbers.
Step 1: Know what a new customer is worth
Start with the average value of a job, and your typical profit margin on it. Then consider repeat work and referrals: a customer who comes back to you for years is worth far more than a single invoice.
Example (illustrative only): if an average job is worth $1,000 and your margin is 30%, each job contributes $300 in profit. If a good customer typically comes back or refers someone, their real value is higher.
Step 2: Decide how much new work you can handle
Marketing that brings in more enquiries than you can respond to wastes money and frustrates customers. Be realistic about how many extra jobs per week or month you can take on, and when.
Step 3: Work out what you can afford per enquiry
Not every enquiry becomes a job. If you win roughly one in three quotes, you need about three enquiries per job. Combine that with your profit per job and you’ll know the maximum you can sensibly pay per enquiry and still come out ahead.
Once campaigns are running, tracking tells you your actual cost per enquiry, so you can adjust.
Step 4: Choose channels that suit your trade
Different trades suit different channels:
- Urgent trades (plumbing, electrical, locksmiths): Google Search ads and local SEO, because customers search at the moment of need.
- Visual trades (landscaping, painting, renovations): Meta Ads and social media showing before-and-after work, supported by local SEO.
- High-value, longer decisions (building, solar, extensions): a strong website with case studies, SEO, and retargeting to stay front of mind.
Everyone benefits from the basics: a clear tradie website, a complete Google Business Profile and a steady flow of genuine reviews. We compare the main options in SEO vs Google Ads for tradies.
Step 5: Separate one-off costs from ongoing costs
- One-off: a new website, logo, photography.
- Ongoing: ad spend, SEO, social media management, website hosting and maintenance.
A website is a foundation that supports every other channel, so it’s usually worth getting right first.
Common budgeting mistakes
- Spreading too thin: a little on everything often means nothing works well. Do one or two things properly.
- No tracking: if you can’t see where enquiries come from, you can’t tell what’s worth the money.
- Stopping and starting: SEO and brand-building reward consistency.
- Cutting marketing when busy: that’s often when you should be building the pipeline for quieter months.
- Slow follow-up: the best campaign in the world can’t fix enquiries that wait days for a reply.
Want help setting a budget?
Book a free consultation and we’ll help you work through the numbers for your business, and recommend where your budget is likely to make the biggest difference.