A budget is not a monthly number you pick because it feels comfortable. It is the amount you can spend to learn whether the channel works, without betting the business on the answer.
Start from the enquiry, not the clicks
Decide what a customer is worth to you, and what you are willing to pay for one enquiry. If a customer is worth ₹20,000 in gross margin and you can serve ten a month, you can afford a meaningful cost per enquiry. If a customer is worth ₹800, the maths is different.
A simple illustrative calculation
Suppose your average cost per click is ₹25, your landing page converts 4% of visitors into enquiries, and you want 20 enquiries a month.
- 20 enquiries ÷ 4% = 500 clicks
- 500 clicks × ₹25 = ₹12,500 in ad spend
Those numbers are placeholders, not a promise. The point is the structure: enquiries needed → clicks → budget. If the resulting cost per enquiry is higher than you can afford, the answer is a better page or a narrower keyword set, not a bigger budget.
Set a learning budget, then a scale budget
Run two weeks at a small budget with tight keywords and one landing page. Judge it on enquiries, not impressions. If the cost per enquiry is viable, increase spend gradually. If it is not, fix the page or stop.
What wastes budget fastest
- Broad match with no negative list.
- Sending every ad to the homepage.
- Counting form opens instead of form completions.
- Leaving search terms unreviewed for a month.
- Running Performance Max before you have conversion data.
What to ask your agency
“Which search terms produced the enquiries, and which did we block?” If that cannot be answered with a report, the account is not being managed; it is being left running.