How Much Should a Construction Company Spend on Marketing?

How much should a construction company spend on marketing?

About 2% to 4% of next year's revenue goal if you want to grow, and 1% to 2% to hold steady. That sits between what builders actually spend (0.9% on advertising, per ISED) and the 3% to 10% most coaches and agencies recommend. Commercial firms that win work through bids need the least^1–5.

At the average $522,400, 0.9% is about $4,700 a year: under $400 a month. That's why so many builders run on referrals and wonder why the phone goes quiet in a slow year.

The published answers disagree because they measure different things:

Debut Marketing summary.

ISED counts advertising only; most advice includes the website, photos, signs and software. And Gartner's respondents are mostly companies with more than $1 billion in revenue¹⁰.

How do you set a construction marketing budget?

Start from the jobs you need, not a percentage. Take your revenue goal, divide by your average job, subtract the jobs referrals and past clients already bring, and price the rest at your cost per booked job. Then add the website, SEO and management. That gives a real number, which you can check against 2% to 4%.

That's a floor. Add video of your projects, a second project type or Facebook ads in the slow months, and you're at 2% to 3%. As a quick check, 2% of revenue is about $833 a month at $500,000, $1,667 at $1 million and $5,000 at $3 million. Below about $1,500 a month in total, I'd skip paid ads and spend on the website, reviews and project photos.

What does construction marketing cost in Canada?

Agencies typically start at about $2,400 for a website, $709 a month for local SEO, $699 a month to manage Google Ads and $2,097 a month for a full-service plan, before ad spend. The ads themselves run about $224 a lead on Google and $61 on Facebook. General contractors can't use Google's Local Services Ads^7,12,13.

Our guide to getting construction leads compares the cost per lead of every channel, including the free ones.

Where should a construction marketing budget go?

Into the pieces that make people trust you before they call, then into the channels that bring new people. For a residential builder, that's mostly the website, project photos, Google search ads and SEO. For a commercial firm, it's the website, project photos and the prequalification and bid work that gets you on lists.

You may have heard of the 70/20/10 rule: 70% on what already works, 20% on something promising and 10% on experiments. It fits construction once you have tracking. Before that, you can't tell which 70% is working, and only 6% of the construction websites we tested used call tracking⁶.

When should a construction company spend more, or less?

Spend more when referrals dry up, when one designer or client brings most of your work, or when you add a project type nobody knows you for. Spend less, or differently, when you're booked out past six months or can't call leads back within the hour. Time it to the season either way.

Competition is rising on the residential side. BuildForce Canada expects residential construction employment to fall 4% by the end of the decade, while non-residential rises 6% by 2035¹⁴. And construction employment drops about 10% from August to January nationally, 4% in BC and 24% in New Brunswick¹⁵. In the colder provinces, keep spending through winter on indoor work and spring pre-booking. Our slow season ideas for construction companies has twelve ways to use those months.

If you'd rather have the budget built for you, see our advertising and lead generation or construction marketing. The website data is in our construction website study.