There’s no question that online advertising is a vital part of any digital marketing campaign. It holds a particularly special place in my heart as the most important skill to master for it was the very first thing I ever learned to do as an intern at a digital agency. Now, after 7+ years of managing ads for various brands and individuals, it has become much more common knowledge that running ads is a must if you want to grow a business online…. or is it???

You see, as more and more people have started running ads on Google and Facebook, the cost per click has gone up. Where I recall running ads for around $0.10 per click, the same campaign now has to bid over $2 per click. This is important to note because not every campaign is profitable and if you start running ads before you are ready, you can end up losing a lot of money.

Bill Gates said it best when speaking about automation exposing inefficient systems. Ads, to me, are in a lot of ways a form of automation for your business. They help scale your current money-making business. But, if you do not know how to properly measure and define your budget for your ads, you could be setting yourself up to run a losing campaign. In an effort to make things as simple as possible, I have built a few calculators below that will help guide you on what data points you need to measure and how you can design a profitable ad campaign.