Cash for a marketing push: borrow for growth you can measure

Most owners treat marketing as the first thing to cut when cash is tight. Sometimes that’s right. But when you’ve found a campaign that reliably brings in customers who spend more than they cost, holding back is the expensive choice. That’s when funding a push makes sense.

When is borrowing for marketing a good idea?

When three things are true:

1. You can measure it. You know which customers came from which channel.
2. It’s proven. You’ve already tested it at a smaller scale with your own money.
3. It pays back faster than you repay. Customers it brings in generate enough profit, soon enough, to cover the cost of the funding.

business.gov.au’s cash flow guidance encourages owners to grow sales by reaching new customers through marketing and online channels. Funding just helps you do more of what already works.

How do you work out the payback?

A simple model:

Number	What it means	Where to find it
Cost per customer	Campaign spend ÷ new customers won	Ad platform, CRM, booking system
First-order profit	Gross profit on a typical first purchase	Your accounts
Repeat value	Profit from that customer over 6–12 months	Sales history
Payback period	How long until profit covers the cost	The above

If a customer costs $80 to win and brings $60 profit on the first order and $200 over a year, the payback is a couple of months. If they cost $80 and bring $40 a year, borrowing to scale makes things worse.

Figures are illustrative only.

Got a campaign that works and want to scale it? Tell us about it and we’ll look at funding the push.

What do businesses fund?

• Paid search and social campaigns during peak demand
• A new website or online store that converts better
• Trade shows and events, including stand, travel and samples
• Signage, vehicle wraps and shopfront upgrades
• Launch campaigns for a new product or a new location
• Seasonal pushes before your busiest weeks

How should it be funded?

• Short-term cash loan for one-off projects (website, trade show, launch). See business cash loan.
• Business cash line for campaigns you scale up and down month to month. See business cash line.
• Working capital if the campaign will also need extra stock or staff to fulfil the demand it creates. The growth cash gap page explains why success needs cash too.

Tracking you’ll want in place before you scale

You can’t judge a funded campaign if you can’t see what it’s doing. Before spending borrowed money, make sure you can answer these questions every week:

• How many enquiries or orders came from each channel? Use tracking links, call tracking, promo codes or a simple “how did you hear about us” question.
• How many of those became paying customers? Enquiries are only half the story.
• What did each paying customer spend? First order and repeat orders.
• What did the channel cost? Ad spend, agency fees, creative and any discounts offered.

A spreadsheet updated every Monday is enough. If one channel isn’t paying back after a fair trial, pull the budget and move it to the one that is. Funding gives you room to scale; tracking tells you where.

Timing the push with your cash cycle

Marketing creates demand before it creates cash. Bookings, orders and enquiries arrive first; payment follows. If your customers pay on invoice terms, a successful campaign can actually make your cash tighter for a few weeks. Plan the funding to cover both the campaign spend and the extra stock or staff time needed to deliver, and use the cash gap calculator to see when the extra income will really land.

Mistakes to avoid

• Funding a test. Test small with your own money; fund the scale-up.
• Ignoring fulfilment. If the campaign works, can you deliver? Extra orders need stock and staff.
• Vanity metrics. Clicks and likes aren’t customers. Track sales.
• Long repayments for short campaigns. Don’t still be paying for a campaign that ended a year ago.

An illustrative example

Illustrative only. A Perth mobile physio business has tested paid search for three months and knows each new client costs about $70 to win and typically books several sessions. The owner wants to triple the budget before winter, when demand peaks, and hire a third physio. A short-term facility funds the campaign and the first month of the new physio’s wages, repaid from the extra bookings by spring.

Back the marketing that works

If you’ve found a way to win customers profitably, cash shouldn’t be the thing that stops you scaling it. Tell us what you’re planning. It takes about a minute, enquiring won’t affect your credit score, and we don’t hand your details around to a stack of lenders. A real person looks at your plan and gives you a call.

Please be accurate about your turnover and what the push will cost. It helps us match the funding to the campaign’s payback.

Fund my marketing push →