By Ted Parry
8 August 2022 
One question I get asked a lot is ‘how much should my business spend on Google ads to get started?’
This is obviously a question that is extremely open-ended with a lot of variables, however there are a few factors that will make an impact on the decision:
1 – How competitive is the industry?
If you’re entering an industry where your competitors are spending high five or six figure sums each month, with extremely high cost per clicks, your budget is going to have to be higher to even have a chance of competing. This is because on too low a budget you won’t be able to collect enough data to make any informed decision, and it will be very much a finger in the air job.
2 – How much volume is there for your category?
If you run a fashion brand or a tech brand with a large product range, then each product category will have different search volume. If you’re on a limited budget you’re not going to be able to target the whole market. Often, you’ll have a pick a category where your product and pricing is strongest, and make a play from there.
3 – What is the existing revenue of the brand?
If you’re a startup then it’s likely Google / Facebook ads are going to be the first port of call into acquiring customers for your brand, so unless you have VC funding then you may need to be more conservative. However, if you’re a brand doing over a million a year via other channels then you have room (and should be more aggressive) when competing on these channels.
Google ads used to be very much about manual bidding where the account manager had to manage the bids everyday. It’s not 2012 anymore, it’s 2022 and Google is using machine learning. Therefore you need to feed it with enough data so its machine learning can take over and find more customers that are likely to convert. Go in with too low a budget and will take too long to learn, or won’t be able to at all.
The accounts I’ve scaled with Amore Digital have always had a healthy starting budget for Google ads.
When I say healthy I’m talking £2k to £3k per month at least. Of the brands that go in with their tip toes with £500 to £1k per month, it’s always a struggle. Just like bodybuilding, you have to cut the fat to expose the muscle. To do that you need to bulk in the first place and be eating enough (spending for this analogy) so later on you can trim in the places that don’t work, and scale the areas that are working. You simply can’t do that with a low starting budget. Overall, it’s better to spend £2k per month over 3 months than £1k per month over 6.
Want to know what potential your brand has?
If you’re an ambitious brand that has a min budget of over £2k per month and feel you could be getting more out of your ads performance. Get in touch with us and we'll discuss undertaking a PPC health check or give you an insight into what your competitors are doing. Book a call direct via the Amore Digital Calendly.
