How much should a trade business spend on marketing?

Key facts

• Recommended minimum: A$5,000 a month in ad spend for most businesses.
• There is no single cost per lead across industries. A removalist lead and a commercial cleaning lead are different jobs with different values, so the figures are given industry by industry.
• What A$5,000 a month buys depends on your industry's typical cost per lead. The table sets it out for each industry.
• The largest companies we work with invest up to A$30,000 a day in advertising; enterprise programmes run above that.
• Ad spend and agency fees are separate. Our fees are custom and not published.

Definitions. Figures are ad spend per lead on Google Ads, before GST and our management fee. A lead is a phone call or an enquiry form. Leads a month are A$5,000 divided by the typical cost per lead, rounded to whole leads. They are a guide, not a forecast, and a lead is not yet a booked job.

Why construction is not in the table. Construction is the one industry where cost per lead is not the goal. The right figure depends on the project value, and what counts is how many qualified leads become paying customers. When a single project is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it can make sense to spend up to A$10,000 to win one paying customer, and A$50,000–A$100,000 on the largest projects, judged over a longer timeframe than other trades.

Google sets no minimum budget. The floor comes from what a budget has to do in the first months: produce enough leads to tell a working campaign from a lucky one.

• Enough leads to learn from. At the typical figures in the table, A$5,000 buys about 42–125 plumbing leads or 83–167 electrical leads a month. Split across two or three services and a few groups of suburbs, that still gives each part of the account enough volume to compare. Halve it and each service sees a handful of calls, where one good week and one bad week look the same.
• Enough clicks for the search terms to show a pattern. A budget at that level buys enough clicks for the weekly review of what people actually typed to show which searches book work and which waste money. That review is where most wasted spend is found.
• Enough conversions for the bidding to work. Google Ads optimises toward the actions you tell it are valuable, such as calls and forms. Thin conversion data gives it little to learn from.
• The set-up work costs the same at any budget. Tracking, landing pages and search-term reviews take similar effort whether the account spends a little or a lot.

If A$5,000 a month is not possible yet, narrow the account rather than thinning it: one service, your closest suburbs and the hours you can answer. Our earlier guide on setting a Google Ads budget by working back from one job covers that case.

Work back from the jobs you want, not forward from a figure that feels comfortable:

1. Decide how many extra jobs a month the team can take on.
2. Divide by your lead-to-job rate to get the leads you need.
3. Multiply by the typical cost per lead for your industry.

An illustrative example, not a forecast: a plumber who wants 20 more jobs a month and wins one lead in three needs about 60 leads. The table shows what 60 leads cost at the typical cost per lead for plumbing, and the same for electricians and cleaning.

If the answer comes out below A$5,000 a month, the market or the job target is small, and a narrower account will read more clearly. If it comes out far above, check that the searches exist in your area and that the team can do the work before committing. Your lead-to-job rate matters as much as the cost per lead: our guide on conversion rates for trades explains how to measure it.

Scaling works when enquiries rise roughly in step with spend. We review enquiry costs alongside lead quality and booked work, so the campaign reflects the jobs your business wants. These SoudCoh case studies show what that looks like, each compared with itself.

Where the improvement shows ad spend and enquiries rising together at a steady cost per enquiry, the account grew without giving back its efficiency. Where spend rose faster than enquiries, each extra enquiry cost more, and the question became whether the extra jobs were worth it. The campaigns that scale well share a pattern:

• Grow what already converts. Add budget to the services and suburbs with the best cost per enquiry first, then open new ones as separate campaigns.
• Change one thing at a time, a month apart. A new account’s volume keeps building for months: in SoudCoh's research sample, enquiries in month 4 ran at a median 2.2 times month 1. See how long Google Ads takes to get leads.
• Scale to capacity. More enquiries than the team can answer or attend raises cost per job, even if cost per enquiry looks fine.
• Keep the review rhythm. More spend means more search terms; the weekly exclusion work grows with the budget.

The largest companies we work with currently invest up to A$30,000 a day in advertising, and enterprise programmes run above that. At that size the account looks different, not just bigger:

• campaigns for every service line and every region, each with its own landing pages;
• call handling built for volume, with call tracking by campaign so busy periods do not lose enquiries;
• reporting against booked job value, not enquiry counts, because small changes in the conversion rate are worth more than any bid change;
• search-term review at scale, because a wasted pattern costs more every day it runs.

No business needs to start there. The same method that works at A$5,000 a month, measured properly and scaled to capacity, is what gets an account to that size. As a Google Ads agency in Melbourne working with trade businesses across Australia, we run accounts at each of these stages.

No. Ad spend is what Google charges for clicks. A marketing budget also covers the people and assets that make those clicks pay:

Always compare proposals with ad spend and management fees shown as two separate numbers, and ask how the ad account is set up and who runs it. We own and run the accounts we build; on long-term agreements, ownership and handover options are available to discuss. Our management fees are not published: every engagement is custom-built around your channels, markets and the volume of work you want. Our guide on how Google Ads agencies charge explains the common models and questions to ask before you sign.

For trade-specific set-ups, see our pages on marketing for plumbing businesses, electricians and cleaning businesses. When the website is the constraint, our website design team builds the pages, and our lead generation work ties ads, pages and follow-up together.

What is the minimum Google Ads budget for a trade business?

Google sets no minimum. We recommend at least A$5,000 a month in ad spend for most businesses. What that buys depends on your industry's cost per lead: at SoudCoh's typical figures it is about 42–125 plumbing leads, 83–167 electrical leads or 200–417 residential cleaning leads a month, enough to see which services and suburbs produce jobs.

How many leads does A$5,000 a month buy a trade business?

It depends on the industry, because there is no single cost per lead across trades. At SoudCoh's typical figures, A$5,000 a month buys about 42–125 plumbing leads, 83–167 electrical leads, 200–417 residential cleaning leads or 83–250 heating and cooling leads. The real figure depends on your suburbs, services, competition and how well calls and quote requests are handled. A lead is a call or form, not a booked job.

Should ad spend and agency fees be quoted separately?

Yes. Ad spend is paid to Google for clicks; a management fee pays for the people running the account. Seeing them as two numbers is the only way to compare proposals. SoudCoh's fees are not published because each engagement is custom-built around your channels, markets and the volume of work you want.

How large can a trade business's Google Ads budget get?

The largest companies we work with currently invest up to A$30,000 a day in advertising, and enterprise programmes run above that. What limits a budget is demand in your area and your capacity to answer and attend jobs, so scale in steps and keep cost per lead close to where it started.

Should a trade business spend a percentage of revenue on marketing?

A percentage of revenue tells you what you can afford, not whether the spend will pay. Work back from the jobs you want instead: jobs needed, divided by your lead-to-job rate, multiplied by the typical cost per lead for your industry. Then check the result against what the business can afford.