Video summary

Quel budget prévoir pour vos campagnes Ads ? (Meta/Google)

Main summary

Key takeaways

Business

Business-focused summary: budgeting for Meta/Google Ads

Core principle: budget as strategy, not guesswork

  • Ad budgets are often set by intuition. Without linking budget → objectives → expected results, campaigns can be misread.
  • Too low a budget can prevent the algorithm from learning properly.
  • Too small a spend can also create misleading “good” results that don’t hold once scaling starts.
  • A proper budget is a fundamental framework that enables meaningful testing, measurement, and future decision-making.

Budgeting framework (derived from business economics)

Starting inputs (3 figures)

  • Current revenue
  • Revenue target
  • Available marketing budget needed to reach that target

Recommended logic (example calculation)

  • Revenue target: €50,000
  • Product price: €100 → 500 sales required
  • Margin: 60% → maximum bearable acquisition cost (CPA) per transaction
    • €100 revenue × 60% margin = €60 contribution
    • CPA max stated: €40 per transaction (as given)
  • Budget needed:
    • If CPA must stay under €40, projected ad spend: ~€20,000

Use the projection to assess:

  • Financial feasibility of the goal
  • The tradeoff between immediate profitability vs volume growth
  • Whether operations can handle the expected order flow

Ensuring the ad algorithm can optimize (MTA learning volume)

Even if CPA targets are reasonable, tests can fail if the budget is too small to feed learning.

Rule of thumb: Daily budget per active campaign ≥ 3× target CPA

  • Example: target CPA €40 → budget €120/day/campaign
  • If below this threshold: campaigns may run, but they likely remain in learning, making effectiveness unclear.

Choose budget model based on your business type

No universal formula—budget should match the economics of your model.

1) E-commerce

  • Direct data available: average basket size, margin, purchase frequency
  • Budget reasoning can be based on cost of acquisition per sale
  • Watch margin: too tight a margin limits how much you can profitably invest

2) Lead generation

  • Budget based on value of a lead and conversion rate
  • Example given:
    • If 1 in 10 leads → 1 customer
    • Customer brings €1,000
    • Value per lead = €100
    • Then you can set a consistent target CPA and budget accordingly

3) SaaS / long-term products (LTV-driven)

  • Use LTV as the central metric
  • Expect higher initial acquisition cost
  • Payback horizon: 6 to 12 months
  • Budget becomes a growth lever, not just immediate profitability

Operating process / playbook: testing and pacing

Avoid “one-off” fixed spend

  • Ads are dynamic—you need temporal allocation and room to iterate.

Continuous activity duration

  • Recommendation: 4,000–6,000 continuous activity period (as stated)
  • Purpose: allow algorithm learning, creative testing, and audience maturation

Creative testing budget allocation

  • Budget should include capacity to refresh creative:
    • Don’t necessarily launch 10 variants at once
    • But ensure you can introduce new variations when performance slows

Measurement & KPIs: profitability indicators that matter

Instead of only short-term metrics like ROS, the framework emphasizes marketing’s contribution to overall business profitability.

Marketing Efficiency Ratio (MER)

  • MER = marketing expenses / revenue (turnover)
  • Example:
    • €5,000 spend → €25,000 revenue
    • MER = 20%
  • Higher spending isn’t automatically bad—the key is efficiency

ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment)

  • ROMI = revenue / marketing expenses
  • Using the same example:
    • €25,000 / €5,000 = 5
    • Interpretation: every €1 invested returns €5 (as stated)

Questions MER/ROMI are meant to answer:

  • At what point does the budget become profitable?
  • How much can you scale without degrading performance?
  • Is the campaign creating real business growth or just an illusion?

Timeline expectations: learning cost before profit

  • When launching ads, you’re primarily funding learning
  • Results may take 7, 14, or 21 days
  • If you cut early chasing immediate profitability, you may kill campaigns before they stabilize

Initial goal:

  • balanced point
  • stable CPA
  • efficient conversion funnel
  • high-performing creative over time

Profitability comes after system consolidation.

Measurement caution:

  • Never rely on one indicator over too short a period
  • Cross-reference data sources to validate whether results are truly ads-driven (vs. external factors)

Five “execution pillars” (recap)

  • Precisely quantified objective
  • Defined investment capacity
  • Methodical testing methodology
  • Indicators (MER, ROMI) to drive profitability
  • Budget understood through the lens of business economics (not arbitrary spend)

Presenters / sources

  • Théo for Koudac (as stated in the subtitles)

Original video