The question comes up at every launch: "how much should I put in?". The answer does not depend on your cash flow but on your target cost per acquisition and the volume needed for the numbers to mean anything.
Start from what a customer is worth
Take the margin an average customer leaves you, then the share you accept to invest to acquire them: that is your target CPA. If a job leaves you €400 of margin and you accept spending a quarter of it on acquisition, your target CPA is €100.
The readability threshold
To judge a campaign you need enough conversions to escape randomness: in practice around thirty over the observed period. At a €100 CPA that is roughly €3,000 over a month — about €100 a day. Below that, the campaign may work, but you will not be able to steer it: every week will tell a different story.
If that budget is out of reach
- Narrow the scope rather than the budget: one city, one service, the hours when you actually answer.
- Target high-intent queries even if you lose volume: "emergency lock repair" rather than "locksmith".
- Extend the analysis window: judge over six weeks rather than seven days.
- Accept concluding later: a delayed decision beats a decision made on noise.
What SaveAds does
SaveAds computes your thresholds from your actual volume and adapts its analysis windows. On a small account it will say "not enough volume to conclude" instead of inventing a trend — and will first propose actions that do not depend on volume, such as excluding off-topic queries.