How Much Should You Actually Be Spending on Meta Ads?

It's one of the most common questions we get asked, and the honest answer is, it depends. But let's make that actually useful rather than just a cop-out.

Start with what you can comfortably afford to lose... READ: invest.

If you're just starting out with Meta ads, the first thing I want you to do is separate yourself from the idea that every dollar you spend is going to come back to you immediately. It might. But in the early stages, you're paying for data, learning, and testing as much as you're paying for sales. That's normal. That's how this works.

With that in mind, start with an amount you can sustain for at least a few months without it keeping you up at night.

For eCommerce brands, I wouldn't recommend going much below $20 a day. $50 a day is a solid starting point. If all you can swing right now is $5 to $10 a day, I'd be honest with you, your money is probably better spent elsewhere for now.

If you have to run ads, focus on building your email list, running retargeting to the warm audience you already have, or working on other areas of your business until you're in a stronger position. Ads tend to work better when there's already some momentum behind the business anyway.

The agency fee rule

If you're working with an agency, there's a rule of thumb I stand by firmly. Never spend more on their retainer than what you're putting into your actual ad spend.

If an agency is charging you $3,000 a month in fees and you're only putting $1,500 into ads, the maths just doesn't work in your favour. It becomes very hard to be profitable when your management costs are outweighing what you're actually putting in front of potential customers. Make sure the ratio makes sense.

What we work with at BRM

We have a minimum ad spend of $100 a day for eCommerce brands. That gives us a solid base for testing, enough data to make good decisions quickly, and room to see what's actually working before we start scaling anything.

For brands who are already doing well and want to start using Meta more seriously, somewhere between $100 and $300 a day is a great range to be playing in.

From there, it really does come down to your situation. Where are you in your business right now? Are you in a stabilisation phase, just trying to keep things steady? Are you in active growth mode and want to push hard? Is it peak season or your quiet period? All of these things matter, and they should be shaping how much you're spending.

More is not always better

This is something we feel pretty strongly about. We've told clients to spend less. We've suggested holding budgets steady when the timing wasn't right. We've also scaled aggressively when everything was firing and the data was screaming at us to go harder.

There's no universal answer. It comes down to your goals, your margins, your capacity to fulfil, and your appetite for risk. A good ads manager should be having that conversation with you regularly, not just chasing a bigger budget for the sake of it.

Spend what makes sense for where you are right now. And when the time is right to scale, you'll know.