Advertising costs per channel: calculate your own budget

Use the same period, currency, VAT treatment and result definition. A link click is something different from all clicks on an ad, and a form submission is not automatically a usable enquiry. Also check whether management costs, production and a new landing page fall outside the media budget.

If there are no results, note "no enquiries" or "no customers". Do not present a division by zero as a favourable cost price.

Fictitious calculation model: two channels each receive a €300 media budget. All click prices and percentages in this table are chosen assumptions, not observed campaign outcomes.

With the same six enquiries, the difference in click price is not decisive. If in a second scenario only one of the six enquiries becomes a customer, the media cost per customer is €300. If two enquiries become customers, it is €150. Add creation and management to that.

This calculation shows which data you need; it does not predict a conversion rate. Fill in the table after your test with your own, verified results.

Use the questions below as your own selection tool, not as a fixed ranking:

• Google Search: which concrete search query fits your offer and which page answers that query?
• Facebook and Instagram: is the offer understandable without someone first actively searching for it, and can you create suitable images and explanation?
• LinkedIn: does a professional context help you reach the right business audience, and can you measure the longer follow-up?
• TikTok or Pinterest: does use of the channel fit your product, audience and available content?

Check the current targeting, approval and budget terms in the account. A low click price for an unsuitable audience does not fix a wrong channel choice. Start with a testable question and limit the number of simultaneous variants.

Fictitious budget: a new customer leaves a €200 contribution after delivery. The business owner wants to use at most €80 of that for total acquisition. If one in four usable enquiries becomes a customer, an enquiry in this model can bear at most €20 in total acquisition costs. That ratio must emerge from your own follow-up.

Then reserve an amount you can afford to lose and set an end date, responsible person and stop rule in advance. For example: first check that the form and measurement work; only then assess whether there are enough usable enquiries. A small number of results can contain a lot of chance. A universal starting budget of €300 or €500 does not yield a guaranteed reliable channel comparison.

A daily budget is not always a hard daily limit. For most Google Ads campaigns with an average daily budget, Google states a daily spending limit of twice that average and a monthly limit of 30.4 times the average. There are exceptions and changes can affect the calculation. Read the explanation of average daily budgets and check your budget report.

Fictitious calculation with an unchanged average daily budget: €10 × 30.4 = €304 monthly limit for a campaign to which that standard rule applies. Do not put €10 down without checking as a hard maximum charge on every individual day. For other channels, check their own budget, billing and payment settings.

Create a measurement table with channel, period, media costs, other costs, usable enquiries, new customers and realised contribution. Do not register the same enquiry twice because both the platform and your own form count it. Place platform attribution next to your own follow-up and name missing measurement due to consent or other limitations.

1. Test the landing page and confirmation on a phone before you start ads.
2. Agree who assesses enquiries and tracks the outcome.
3. Compare only after a suitable follow-up period; an open quote is not yet a customer.
4. In a next test, deliberately change one important factor and note what was adjusted.

Use the guide to UTM codes for recognisable links and the landing page checklist to check what follows the click. Your own results then form a clearer basis for decisions than a non-comparable country or platform average.