Most single-location venues do well on $300 to $900 a month in ad spend. Start at $10 a day. Split it 70/20/10 between locals who don’t know you, people who almost booked, and tests. Raise the budget only when a campaign has filled tables for three straight weeks.
There is no magic number. But there is a safe starting one, and it is smaller than most owners expect.
$10 a day is small enough that a quiet week won’t hurt. It is also big enough for Meta’s system to learn who actually books, which is the whole game. Your ad spend sits on your own card, on top of any agency fee. That is how our plans work too.
What $10 a day buys
In a Brisbane suburb, $10 a day puts your venue in front of roughly 8,000 locals a month. Not tourists. Not people three suburbs over. People within a short drive of your door.
That last number is the one to hold onto. One booked table of four covers three weeks of spend. Everything past that is profit the ad made you.
Budget by goal
Pick the job first. The budget follows.
| Goal | Monthly spend | What to expect |
|---|---|---|
| Stay in front of locals | $300 | Steady reach, slow burn. Bookings trickle in and compound. |
| Fill quiet nights | $600 | Enough to push one clear offer hard, like a Tuesday special. |
| Launch or own the area | $900+ | Two campaigns at once. Faster learning, faster results. |
ALL FIGURES EX-GST. AD SPEND GOES ON YOUR CARD AT COST, NEVER MARKED UP.
If $300 a month sounds like a lot, run the table maths from above again. In most venues the break-even is two tables. Our pricing page has a calculator that does it for your average spend per head.
The 70/20/10 split
Where the money goes matters more than how much there is. Split every month’s budget three ways.
Locals who don’t know you
Within about 5km of the venue. Food first, offer second. This is the audience that grows the business, so it gets most of the money.
People who almost booked
They visited your booking page, watched your video, saved a post, then got distracted. Retargeting them costs a fraction of finding them. These are the cheapest tables you will ever buy.
Tests
A new dish, a new angle, a new offer. Small stakes, big lessons. Winners graduate into the 70.
A campaign that gets 50,000 views but no bookings is a waste of money.
THE HOSPOPRO RULE
When to raise it
Spend follows proof. Raise the budget when all three are true.
- Three straight weeks of booked tables from one campaign, not one lucky weekend.
- Your cost per booking is under a third of what an average table is worth to you.
- The last raise held. Results stayed strong for a fortnight after you increased it.
Then raise it 20%, not 100%. Doubling a budget overnight resets Meta’s learning phase, and your results with it.
Where owners burn money
- The boost button. Boosting optimises for likes, not bookings. Run ads from Ads Manager, aimed at a booking page, with a real objective.
- No landing page. An ad that dumps people on your homepage loses them in two taps. One page, one offer, one button. Every campaign we run gets its own.
- Changing ads weekly. The system needs two to three weeks to learn. Judge campaigns monthly, not daily.
FAQ
Is the boost button ever worth it?
Rarely. Boosting can work for pure awareness, like a venue birthday. For bookings, Ads Manager wins every time because you can choose the objective, the audience and the landing page.
How long until ads pay for themselves?
Most venues see booked tables inside two to four weeks. The first fortnight is the learning phase, so judge nothing before day 14 and everything at day 28.
Should I run Instagram or Facebook?
Both. They share one ad system, so run the same campaign across the two and let placement optimisation decide where your money works hardest. In our accounts the split usually lands around 60/40 to Instagram.
Do I need a big following first?
No. Ads reach people who have never heard of you, which is the point. Followers are a bonus the ads earn along the way, not a requirement to start.
- Meta Business Help Centre, ad delivery and the learning phase
- Spend and reach figures reflect HospoPro client accounts in South East Queensland, 2025 to 2026
We run the photos, posts, ads, email and reporting for hospitality venues across South East Queensland. Everything in this guide comes from doing the work on live venues, not a textbook.
