How much should a painter spend on ads?

“How much should I spend on ads?” is usually answered with a number someone picked: $500 a month, $1,000 a month, whatever feels safe.

A better way is to start with the jobs you want and work backwards. It takes five minutes and you only need four numbers.

The four numbers you need

1. Extra jobs you want each month. Be realistic about how many your crew can take on.
2. Your win rate. Out of every measure-up, how many turn into signed jobs? Check your last 20 quotes if you’re not sure.
3. Your booking rate. Out of every enquiry, how many turn into a measure-up? Some enquiries are renters, some are pricing a job for next year, some never answer the phone.
4. Your cost per enquiry. What an ad enquiry costs you. If you haven’t run ads before, you won’t know this yet, so start with a small test to find out.

Work it out backwards

Here’s an example with made-up numbers. Swap in your own.

In this example, about $1,900 a month in ads brings in about $32,000 a month of work. Whether that’s worth it depends on your margin, but now you’re deciding with real numbers.

The numbers you control most

Look at the table again. The cost per enquiry is mostly set by the ad platforms and your market. The other two, booking rate and win rate, are set by you.

Say you lift your win rate from 1 in 3 to 1 in 2 with faster, more detailed quotes and proper follow-up. You now need 8 measure-ups instead of 12, and 16 enquiries instead of 24. Same four jobs, a third less ad spend.

That’s why fixing why your quotes go cold is often worth more than a bigger ad budget.

Google or Facebook?

• Google Ads catches people who are already searching for a painter. These enquiries tend to be further along and ready to get quotes.
• Facebook and Instagram reach homeowners before they start searching, with photos and videos of your work. Enquiries can be cheaper, but they’re earlier in the decision, so fast follow-up matters even more.

Many painters end up running both: Google for people ready now, Facebook and Instagram to keep the calendar full a few weeks out.

Don’t judge ads on clicks

Clicks, reach and likes don’t pay wages. Judge your ads on:

• enquiries
• booked measure-ups
• signed jobs and their total value

If enquiries are coming in but measure-ups aren’t getting booked, the problem is usually response speed, not the ads.

Common mistakes

• Switching ads off when you’re busy. The calendar empties six weeks later. Keep a steady baseline instead.
• Sending ad clicks to your homepage. Send them to a page about the exact job, with an easy way to get a quote.
• Slow replies. An enquiry that waits half a day is often gone. See how to follow up a painting quote.

If you’d rather not run it yourself

We run the ads for painters on the Gold Coast and in Brisbane, then answer every enquiry, book the measure-ups, write the proposals and follow them up. Your ad spend goes straight to Meta and Google, and you see exactly what it’s turning into.

See our pricing or book a strategy call.