Sauce Ad Investment Model

Your numbers

Set these. Everything else is calculated.

Average job value £165,000

Gross margin What you keep after materials, labour and subs 20%

Close rate Enquiries needed per job won 1 in 6

Jobs per client A landlord with a portfolio is worth several 1.0

Collected in the first 30 days Deposit or first application, as a share of the job 10%

Cost per click UK construction search runs £8 to £25 £12

Click becomes an enquiry Landing page conversion rate 3.0%

Steps run by software Finding leads · selling · delivering 0 of 3

Daily ad spend £304 a month · £3,650 a year £10 / day

Most you can pay for a client £2,750 And still clear 12 times your money

Most you can pay for an enquiry £458 At 1 in 6 closing

Job value	£165,000
× gross margin	20%
= profit on one job	£33,000
× jobs per client	1.0
= profit per client	£33,000
÷ return required	12
= ceiling per client	£2,750
× close rate	1 ÷ 6
= ceiling per enquiry	£458
cost per click	£12
÷ click-to-enquiry rate	3.0%
= what an enquiry actually costs	£400

Headroom

What the spend buys

At your cost per click

Clicks a month 25

Enquiries a month 0.8

Jobs won a year 1.5

Return on spend 13.8×

Committed over a year £3,650 Total media spend

To get the money back 1 in 9 yrs One job every nine years

To hit the target return 1 in 9 mths

Profit a year £50,188 Once the pipeline is running

Where it stops working

Ceiling per enquiry across margin and close rate. Gold cell is you.

Margin \ close

Ceiling above what an enquiry costs you Ceiling below it, the job loses money Where you are

Where the money goes

First

Your own name

Sauce Interiors and Print Sauce. Pennies a click, buyers who already want you, and it keeps competitors off your name.

Second

A handful of exact terms

Office dilapidations, Cat B fit out, licence to alter. Exact match only, so the budget is never spent on browsing.

Third

People who already visited

Follow-up ads to anyone who has been on the site. Cheap, and it starts once the office pages are live.

Always

Blocked from day one

Job hunters, apprenticeships and domestic work are excluded before the first pound is spent, with a minimum project value stated on the page.

The honest limit at this level. A small budget buys enough enquiries to win work, but not enough clicks to prove which advert earned them. Judge it on jobs won over a year rather than on weekly cost per click.