Marketing budget for a single-branch dealership: where the first ten thousand goes

Written by Michael Nadalin, CEO and Founder · 09 Oct 2026 · 6 min read

Ten thousand dollars is a test, not a campaign

Most single-branch dealers I talk to have the same story. They put a few thousand into a local radio package, a few more into a boosted Facebook post and a field day banner, and at the end of it nobody can say which dollar sold a machine. So the conclusion becomes "marketing doesn't work out here". It does. It just wasn't set up to answer the question.

My position is simple. Your first $10,000 has one job, which is to tell you where the second $10,000 should go. That means about 90 days, two channels, and enough plumbing that every enquiry can be followed through to an invoice.

Here is how I split it for a one-branch agricultural machinery dealer with a sales team of two or three and a yard of new and used stock.

Notice that almost a third never touches an ad platform. Dealers push back on that every time. I hold the line every time, because the other 70 per cent is wasted without it.

Why does $3,000 go to plumbing before a single ad runs?

Because a form fill is not a result. A bloke who rings the branch on a Saturday morning about a used 150 horsepower tractor is a result, and in most dealerships that call leaves no trace at all. In my experience well over half of serious farm equipment leads come in by phone, and without call tracking the ad platforms never see them.

The $3,000 buys five things, done in this order. None of it is glamorous. All of it is the difference between guessing and knowing.

Steps four and five are where nearly everyone stops short. Tracking to the actual sale, not just the form fill, is what lets Google learn the difference between a tyre kicker and a buyer.

Where does the Google Ads money go first?

Search gets the biggest share because it catches people who are already looking. A farmer typing a model number and the word "used" into Google at 9pm is as close to a hand raised as you will get in agriculture marketing.

At $4,500 over roughly ten weeks you have about $60 a day. That is not enough to bid on everything, so you rank the searches and fund from the top down. I rarely get past the third tier on a first budget, and that is fine.

Keep the radius honest too. Rural buyers will drive three hours for the right used machine, but they won't drive three hours for a service. Set a wide radius for used stock and a tight one for the workshop.

What is Meta Ads actually for at this budget?

Meta is not where a first budget finds cold buyers for a $300,000 header. I have watched dealers try. The leads are cheap, the forms are filled in by thumb on the couch, and the sales team stops returning the calls by week three.

What Meta does well for a single branch is narrower, and it earns its $2,500 if you keep it in that lane. Roughly $35 a day across two jobs, both tied to real stock.

What should the 90 days look like week by week?

Machinery has a long buying cycle. Someone who enquires in week four might not sign until week sixteen, especially on new gear with finance and a trade involved. So you judge the test on the leading signs early and the sales late.

Timing matters as well. I would not start this in the middle of harvest and expect croppers to answer the phone about a new seeder. Start six to eight weeks ahead of the window you care about, or run into the weeks before the end of financial year when the accountants are pushing people to buy.

What numbers should I expect from $7,000 of ad spend?

Ranges, not promises. For farm equipment leads on search I usually see cost per lead land somewhere between $80 and $180, depending on the category and how much competition is in the region. Meta comes in cheaper, often $30 to $90, and softer.

So $7,000 of media should produce somewhere between 50 and 80 enquiries. That number on its own tells you nothing. What matters is how many survive each step, and the drop-off is steeper than most owners expect.

Two or three machines from a first test sounds small. Do the sums on gross margin for a used tractor, add a couple of new service accounts, and it usually covers the spend. More useful than that, you now know your cost per sale by channel. That is the number that lets you spend the next ten thousand with some confidence, or tells you plainly which half to stop.

Written by

Michael Nadalin

Founder, Market Lead & Harvest Lead

Michael is the founder of both Market Lead and Harvest Lead, building lead and sales systems for agriculture and machinery businesses across Australia and the USA.