There's no magic percentage that fits every shop. A better way to set a budget is to work backwards from what a new customer is worth to you, and then put money where it keeps paying off.
Start with what one customer is worth
Take your average ticket and think about what a customer brings in over time. A full front PPF customer might come back for ceramic coating, tint on their next car, and send a friend. A tint customer might be worth one job. Write down a rough number for each service you sell. That's the most you could spend to win one customer and still come out ahead. In practice you want to spend a fraction of it.
Then compare channels by cost per booked job
- Paid ads (Google, Facebook, Instagram) bring calls quickly, and stop the day you stop paying. Good for filling a slow month or launching a special.
- Your website and Google search take a few months to build, then keep bringing in buyers without paying per click. Every page you add keeps working.
- Your Google Business Profile is free, and for most shops it's the biggest source of calls. It needs weekly attention more than money.
- Referrals and reviews cost almost nothing but a habit: ask every customer.
Where to start if you're spending nothing today
- Fix your Business Profile: right category, services, photos, hours, and a review request after every job. Free.
- Get a website that ranks for your services, towns and the cars you work on, with a quote form and a text button on every page.
- Track where leads come from, so next month's budget goes to what worked.
- Add ads last, once your site can turn the clicks you pay for into booked jobs.
Watch out for these
- Paying for ads that send people to a site with no prices, no proof and no quick way to reach you.
- Monthly reports full of "impressions" with no calls or leads in them.
- Contracts where you don't own your domain or your Google accounts.
Measure it every month
Whatever you spend, look at three numbers monthly: leads by source, jobs booked from those leads, and what each source cost. Keep what works, cut what doesn't. That's the whole system.
For what it's worth, our package is one monthly price for the website, Google search, Business Profile and lead follow-up together. See pricing.