Ask ten people and you’ll get ten percentages. The truth is that a sensible marketing budget for a trade business starts with a much more useful number: what one extra job is worth to you.
Start with the value of a job
Take your typical job value and your margin on it. If an average job is £12,000 and you clear 25%, one extra job is worth about £3,000 in profit.
Now ask: how many extra jobs a year would make a real difference? For a firm with a team and a couple of vans, two or three more good jobs a year is often the gap between a tight year and a comfortable one.
Then set the budget against that
If two extra jobs are worth £6,000 in profit, spending £5,000 a year to reliably win them is a good trade — especially if what you’re paying for keeps working in year two. Spending £5,000 on something that can’t be traced to a single job is not.
As a rough sense-check, many established small firms land somewhere around a few percent of turnover. But treat that as a sanity check, not a target.
Spend it on things you keep
The biggest mistake isn’t spending too much or too little. It’s spending every year on things that reset — ads that stop the day you stop paying, leads shared with four other firms.
A better split for most established trades:
- Your Google Business Profile — kept active every month. The cheapest, highest-intent visibility there is
- Finished jobs written up — the proof that wins the quote when a homeowner is comparing
- Your own website — where it all lives, and where enquiries come only to you
- Directories, if they earn their keep — measured on cost per job won, reviewed at renewal
Measure one thing
Ask every new enquiry how they found you, and write it down. After six months you’ll know exactly what’s working — which beats any percentage.
What does it cost with us?
One job written up is £350. Engine — two jobs a month, your Google profile and reviews handled — is £450 a month, no contract. Everything’s on the pricing page.