There is no universal “good” ad budget. A $400 ticket and a $6,000 ticket do not share a media plan. The useful question is: what volume of closed work do you need this month, and what does the funnel math imply?
A simple sequence
- Pick a 12-month revenue target you actually want.
- Divide by average ticket to get closed jobs.
- Divide jobs by your real lead-to-close rate, not a blog-post rate.
- Multiply leads by a blended CPL you have seen, or a conservative estimate for your market.
That last number is media, not management. Retainers cover the people and the craft. Platforms bill spend separately. If the implied media number scares you, the target is the thing to revisit, not the math.
What “enough” looks like in practice
Enough is the amount that lets the algorithm learn and lets us rotate creative without starving every ad set. Starving a campaign to “stay efficient” is how accounts stay stuck. We would rather name a number, test it for a defined window, and decide with data.