There is no universal correct PPC budget; the right figure depends on your margins, average order or service value, and how much risk you can tolerate while you learn what works.
Start from what you can afford to test with
Decide on an amount you are comfortable spending over a test period of a few weeks without it threatening the business, treating this initial spend as the cost of learning rather than expecting immediate profit.
Consider your average transaction value
A clinic with a high per-patient value can often justify a higher cost per enquiry than a shop selling low-margin items, since the potential return per converted customer differs substantially.
Account for your sales conversion process
If your team takes several days to follow up on enquiries, or your close rate on leads is low, budget needs to account for more leads to reach the same number of actual customers.
Review and adjust rather than setting and forgetting
A starting budget should be revisited weekly in the early stages, increasing spend on what is clearly working and reducing or pausing what consistently underperforms.
Separate testing budget from scaling budget
Once you have reliable data showing certain campaigns convert well, that is the point to consider increasing budget meaningfully, rather than scaling spend before you have evidence.
Key takeaways
- Set an initial budget you can afford to use purely for learning
- Factor in your actual margin or value per customer
- Account for how efficiently your team follows up on leads
- Review budget weekly in the early stages of a campaign
- Scale spend only once data shows what is reliably working