Where should your ad budget actually go?

It depends on what a customer is worth to you and how competitive your category is, not on a percentage-of-revenue rule. As a practical floor, a single channel needs roughly 20 to 30 clicks a week before the data means anything. In most Australian service categories that lands between $1,000 and $3,000 a month per channel. Below that, run one channel properly rather than three badly.

Split on intent. Google Search reaches people actively looking for what you sell, so it usually leads for trades, professional services and B2B. Meta creates demand rather than capturing it, so it usually leads for retail, hospitality and anything visual or impulse-driven. Retargeting sits across both and is almost always the cheapest conversion source in the account.

Because any number would be invented. What a lead costs depends on your offer, your landing page, how fast you call people back and who you're bidding against — none of which a calculator can see. Anyone quoting you a cost per lead before they've looked at your account is guessing. What can be planned in advance is where the money goes and exactly how to spend it, so that's what this tool gives you instead. Returns vary by industry; figures are illustrative of well-optimised accounts.

No. The recommended split, the dollar amount per channel and the daily spend are free and require nothing. Details are only needed to unlock the in-depth plan: the campaign build for each channel, your tracking and landing page setup, targeting and negative keyword lists, example ads, a creative shot list and a 90-day launch roadmap.

The model weights four channels against your objective, your industry and how long your customers take to decide, then applies minimum viable spend thresholds so channels that couldn't gather enough data are folded into the strongest one. The weightings come from 20+ years of hands-on media buying and more than $100M in managed ad spend.