Stop guessing your gym marketing budget. Mike Arce walks through the exact formula: CAC x Sales Target = what you should spend.
Some owners set their gym marketing budget at 10% of revenue. Others spend whatever is left in the bank. Both start in the wrong place. The better move is to pick the result you want first, then work out what it costs to get there.
The formula is two numbers: your customer acquisition cost multiplied by your sales target. Add up everything you spend to bring in members, including ad spend, agency fees, videographers, and sales commissions. Divide that by the new members you sign each month. If you spend $5,000 and sign 25 members, your cost is $200 per member. To sign 30 members, your budget is $6,000.
This gym ad spend formula takes minutes to run. Mike also points to an AI marketing budget tool that asks a few questions, builds the number for you, and lets you test different scenarios.
If you have been setting your gym marketing budget by feel, this is the fix.
In this episode you'll learn:
— Why a percentage of revenue and whatever is left in the bank both start in the wrong place
— How to reverse engineer your budget from the result you want
— The formula: customer acquisition cost x sales target
— What counts as marketing expense beyond ad spend
— How to calculate your customer acquisition cost from your last few months
— A worked example: $5,000 spent, 25 members signed, $200 per member
— How the budget changes when your goal moves from 25 to 30 members
— Why a $6,000 budget does not mean $6,000 on Meta ads
— How to use the AI budget tool to test different scenarios
If your marketing budget has always been a guess, this episode gives you the two numbers that replace it.
Timestamps:
— 0:00 Why most budget advice starts in the wrong place
— 0:29 Reverse engineer where you want to be
— 0:51 The formula: CAC x sales target
— 1:10 The weight loss example
— 1:30 The formula at $100 per member
— 2:21 How to find your customer acquisition cost
— 2:38 What counts as marketing expense
— 3:13 Worked example: $5,000 spent and 25 members
— 3:46 Raising the goal from 25 to 30 members
— 4:00 Why $6,000 does not all go to Meta ads
— 4:26 The AI marketing budget tool
— 4:54 Closing
100K Plan: https://100kplan.com
AI Marketing Budget Tool: https://gsdgyms.com/marketing-budget-calculator
Behind Gym Doors Podcast Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnwaMl7Us7dAkfE6idQW56EYkEEQ2E5eE
Mike keeps the math simple because the plan behind it is simple. The plan behind how GSD Gyms helps studios grow to $100K a month is right here.
The bank balance was never a strategy.
