Work out your budget
Picking a realistic ROAS is the whole game
The maths is trivial - goal divided by ROAS. Everything rests on whether the ROAS you typed is a real expectation or a wish.
Two rules keep people honest. First, if you are already running ads, use what you are actually getting, not what you got in your best week. Second, if you have never run ads, assume worse than you hope for the first two months while the platforms learn.
Whatever number you pick, check it against your floor. If the ROAS you need is below your breakeven, the plan loses money at any budget, and no amount of spending fixes that.
The minimum budget that actually works
There is a spend below which the platforms cannot learn. Meta and Google both need a steady flow of conversions before their optimisation does anything useful. Split €200 across four campaigns and none of them ever gets there.
- Concentrate, do not spread. One campaign at €600 beats four at €150.
- Give it weeks, not days. Judging performance after three days is judging noise.
- Raise budgets gradually. Google documents how its budgets pace, and large jumps reset the learning - you pay for it twice.
Let the budget move itself
Magneety Pro watches pacing across your accounts and reallocates spend toward what is working - with one-tap undo, and a hard cap so it can never overspend you.
14-day trial · no card · cancel anytimeSplitting it across platforms
There is no correct split, but there is a sensible starting shape for a small store that sells online.
| Where | Rough share to start | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Google Search | Larger share | People already looking for what you sell. Usually the cheapest sales you will get. |
| Meta (Facebook + Instagram) | Larger share | Creating demand from people who were not searching. Needs good creative to work at all. |
| Everything else | Small test share | Only once the first two are consistently above breakeven. |
Then move money toward whatever is actually performing, monthly. The split you start with matters far less than being willing to change it.
Before you spend anything
Common questions
How much should a small business spend on ads?
Work backwards from a revenue goal rather than picking a percentage. That said, below roughly €300 a month the ad platforms struggle to gather enough conversions to optimise, so very small budgets often underperform for reasons that have nothing to do with your product or your ads.
Should I set a daily or a monthly budget?
Set it daily in the platform, since that is what the algorithm paces against, but plan and judge it monthly. Daily results swing far too much to make decisions from - a bad Tuesday means nothing.
What if I cannot afford the budget the calculator suggests?
Lower the revenue goal rather than the budget. A goal you cannot fund is not a plan. Alternatively raise your average order value with bundles, which cuts the spend needed for the same revenue.
Does this include the cost of making the ads?
No, this is media spend only. Budget separately for creative - though if you are producing images and copy yourself, or generating them in a tool, that cost may be close to zero.
Plan it here. Run it in Magneety.
Set a budget, launch on Meta and Google without learning either platform, and let Magneety pace the spend toward whatever is actually working.
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