The $2,000 Monthly Hole in Your Pocket
I recently sat down with a landscaping business owner in Carindale. He was frustrated. For six months, he’d been paying a 'marketing guy' $2,000 a month. When I asked him what he got for that $12,000 investment, he showed me a folder of fancy-looking charts with lines going up.
He had plenty of 'engagement' and 'impressions,' but his phone wasn’t ringing any more than it was last year. He was effectively burning two grand a month to buy a stack of paper that didn't help him pay his crew.
Most Brisbane business owners are in the same boat. You know you need to spend money to get customers, but you have no idea if you’re being overcharged or if your money is actually working.
In this guide, I’m going to strip away the jargon and tell you exactly what you should be paying, what’s a total waste of money, and how to tell if your marketing is actually making you a profit.
The "Percentage of Revenue" Trap
You’ll often hear experts say you should spend 5% to 10% of your gross revenue on marketing. If you’re a shop in Chermside turning over $1 million, that’s $100,000 a year.
Here’s the truth: that advice is rubbish for small businesses.
If you’re a solo tradie just starting out, 10% might not even cover a basic website. If you’re an established law firm with a waitlist six months long, spending 10% is a waste of money you could be putting into your retirement fund.
Instead of following a random percentage, you need to look at Customer Acquisition Cost. That’s a fancy way of saying: "How much do I have to spend to get one person to book a job?"
If it costs you $50 in ads to get a lead, and you turn one out of every five leads into a customer, it costs you $250 to get a new client. If that client is worth $5,000 to you, spend as much as you can! If that client is only worth $200, you’re going broke.
Real Benchmarks: What Things Actually Cost in Brisbane
Let’s get into the nitty-gritty. These are the price ranges we see for quality work that actually gets results for local businesses.
1. Your Website (The Foundation)
- The Cheap Option ($500 - $1,500): This is usually a template someone throws together. It’ll look okay, but it likely won't help you show up on Google. - The Professional Small Business Site ($3,000 - $7,000): This is the sweet spot. For this price, your website works on phones, loads fast, and is designed specifically to make people call you. - The Custom Build ($10,000+): Unless you’re running a complex e-commerce store or a large medical clinic with booking integrations, you probably don't need this yet.The Mistake: Many owners spend $10k on a beautiful site but $0 on getting people to visit it. It’s like building a world-class showroom in the middle of the bush where nobody can find it.
2. Google Ads (The "Fast" Results)
To see results in Brisbane’s competitive market (especially for tradies like plumbers or electricians), you should expect to spend at least $1,500 to $3,000 per month on the ads themselves, plus a management fee for the person running them.The Mistake: Spending $500 a month. In a city like Brisbane, your daily budget will be gone by 9:00 AM. You’ll get a few clicks, no calls, and you’ll think "Google Ads doesn't work." It works; you just didn't put enough fuel in the tank to get out of the driveway.
3. SEO (The "Long Game")
SEO is just a way of making sure Google likes your site enough to show it to people searching for your services. In South East Queensland, expect to pay $1,000 to $2,500 per month for a reputable agency.The Mistake: Buying "Cheap SEO" for $300 a month from an overseas company. They usually do nothing or, worse, use dodgy tactics that get your website banned from Google. If the price sounds too good to be true, you aren't just wasting money—you're risking your entire digital presence.
Where Most Business Owners Lose Money
The biggest waste of money I see isn't the price of the ads; it's the leak in the bucket.
I worked with a mechanic in Milton who was spending $4,000 a month on ads. He was getting plenty of clicks, but his bookings were flat. When we actually looked at his data, we found that 80% of his visitors were leaving the site because his "Book Now" button was broken on iPhones.
He was paying Google to send people to a broken page. He didn't need more ads; he needed to fix his website tracking so he could see where the money was disappearing.
Before you increase your budget, you must ensure you can see exactly what’s making money. If you can't tell which phone call came from which ad, you're just guessing. And guessing is expensive.
Three Questions to Ask Your Marketing Person
If you’re paying an agency or a freelancer right now, ask them these three things. If they start using words like "algorithms" or "synergy" to avoid answering, fire them.
1. "How many actual enquiries did we get last month?" Not clicks, not views. Enquiries. 2. "What is our cost per lead?" If you spent $1,000 and got 10 calls, your cost per lead is $100. You need to know this number to know if you're profitable. 3. "Why are people leaving the site without calling?" A good marketer should be able to watch why people don't call and suggest changes to fix it.
How Long Until You See a Return?
Marketing isn't a light switch, but it shouldn't be a black hole either.
Google Ads: You should see the phone start ringing within the first 30 days. It will take 3 months to "tune" the ads to get the best price per call. SEO: This is a slow burn. It usually takes 6 to 12 months to see a significant increase in "free" traffic from Google. If you need money today to pay the bills, don't start with SEO.
- Website Changes: If you fix a broken form or make your phone number easier to find, you can see more calls literally the next day.
The "Golden Rule" of Marketing Spend
Don't spend money you can't afford to lose for at least three months. Marketing requires a bit of testing. We have to figure out what your customers in Brisbane actually click on and what makes them trust you over the guy down the road.
Start small, track everything, and only increase your spend when you can prove that $1 in equals $3 or $5 out.
Summary of Action Steps
If you're feeling overwhelmed, here is exactly what I’d tell my mate to do if they opened a shop tomorrow:
1. Fix your site first: Make sure it works on a phone and has your phone number in big text at the top. 2. Set up tracking: Don't spend a cent on ads until you have a way to count how many people called you from those ads. 3. Pick one channel: Don't try to be on TikTok, Facebook, Google, and Instagram all at once. For most Brisbane service businesses, Google Search is where the money is. 4. Review the numbers monthly: If your cost per lead is going up and your profit is going down, stop and find out why.
Most marketing advice is designed to make things sound complicated so agencies can charge you more. It’s not. It’s just maths. You spend money to get in front of people, you give them a reason to call you, and you make sure the cost of doing that is lower than the profit you make from the job.
At Local Marketing Group, we don't care about fancy reports or "likes." We care about your bottom line. We help Brisbane businesses stop guessing and start growing by focusing on the only metric that matters: more money in your bank account.
Want to know if your current marketing is a waste of cash? Contact us at Local Marketing Group and let's have a straight-talk look at your numbers.