Figures below are Meta and Google combined, pulled daily from both platforms.
| August | Expected landing | Your plan |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | £193,743 | £225,032 |
| Ad spend | £50,460 | not in the plan |
| spent so far | £47,762 |
We reduced Meta budgets on 19 and 20 August, which takes daily spend from about £1,719 to £1,393 across both platforms. August now lands near £50,460 of ad spend.
On subscriptions, we can now be exact. We read your Recharge billing schedule directly, so rather than estimating the subscription line we can see what is due to bill and when. 97% of September is already scheduled with a date and an amount against it. On that basis September subscriptions land near £55,931, about £7,830 below your £63,761 target. September is still the stronger month, because August was heavy for new subscription sign-ups and those first renewals bill roughly a month later.
Your goal is £260,511. Revenue splits into three parts that behave very differently, and only one of them responds to ad spend.
| Component | September | What drives it |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription renewals | £55,931 | Already scheduled. Ads do not change this. |
| Returning customers | £49,500 | Email and your launch calendar. Ads barely move it. |
| New customers | £155,080 | This is the only part ad spend drives. |
That £155,080 of new-customer revenue is 80% more than August is running at, and needs roughly 2,126 new customers. At the efficiency the account is currently delivering, that costs about £105,124 in ad spend, against the £50,460 we are spending this month.
We do not recommend jumping straight to that number on 1 September. The account has never run at that level outside peak season, so we want evidence before committing to it. Instead we step the budget up weekly, and only move to the next step if the cost of acquiring a new customer stays under £50.
| Week | Meta per day | Total per day |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 7 Sept | £1,510 | £1,750 |
| 8 to 14 Sept | £1,860 | £2,100 |
| 15 to 21 Sept | £2,260 | £2,500 |
| 22 to 30 Sept | £2,560 | £2,800 |
| September total (averages £2,322 per day) | £69,650 |
That lands September near £215,657, which is 83% of your goal. Closing the last 17% would need roughly £35,474 more on top, at a daily spend the account has never sustained outside the Christmas peak. We would rather earn that decision in the second week, once the ramp has shown us real numbers at £2,100 a day, than commit to it now.
One thing worth being straight about: advertising gets gradually less efficient the harder you push it, because the easiest customers to reach are the ones you reach first. We have measured that on your account rather than assumed it away, which is why the plan steps up in stages instead of jumping straight to the budget your goal implies.
Spending more in September costs some September profit, and we want to be straight about how much. Holding today's budget leaves about £29,562 of profit in the month. The ramp above leaves about £23,300, and chasing the full goal would leave about £13,170. So the plan gives up roughly £6,262 of September profit compared with sitting still.
What that buys: a new customer roughly pays for herself on the first order and becomes properly profitable later, through repeat orders and subscription. So the extra spend is a cash and growth decision: you are paying now, in the month, for customers who pay you back over the following months. The £110,226 of new-customer revenue in the plan above brings in roughly £155,938 of contribution over the next three years, about £50,250 more than holding still would.
That matters most because of Q4 stock. Money spent on ads in September is money not available for inventory, so the right budget depends on your cash position going into the busiest quarter, which you can see more clearly than we can.
Approve a September ad budget of £69,650, stepped up weekly as above. We will hold each step until the numbers justify the next one, and we will come back to you in the second week with a clear read on whether pushing further makes sense. If your Q4 stock commitments mean that number is too high, tell us the figure you are comfortable with and we will build the ramp around it.
One small thing to check in your own forecast: the running total column appears to stop a day early, so it reads £216,418 where the daily figures actually add up to £225,032.