A property marketing budget isn't set as a percentage first — it's calculated backwards from the sales target: how many units you want to sell, so how many bookings, so how many viewings, so how many qualified leads — then multiplied by the cost per qualified lead in your market. In our experience the result usually lands between 1% and 3% of target sales value. Below 1% produces presence without effect; above 3% usually points to a problem in the product or the pricing, not the marketing.
The question we get in every first meeting: "How much should I set aside for marketing?" And the answer nobody likes: we can't tell you until you tell us your target. A developer who starts with a number and asks what it buys is buying activity. A developer who starts with a target and asks what it costs is buying a result.
Start at the end and work backwards
The path from an advertising riyal to a signed contract is a chain with known ratios. Once you know your own ratios — not market averages — the budget stops being a guess and becomes arithmetic. An illustrative example using figures close to what we see in mid-sized residential projects:
- Target: sell 100 units averaging SAR 1.2M = SAR 120M in target sales
- Close rate from viewing 20% → you need about 500 viewings
- Show-up rate from qualified lead 30% → you need about 1,670 qualified leads
- Cost per qualified lead SAR 250 → about SAR 420K in ad spend
- Add brand, production, sales gallery and website → SAR 1.5–2M total, or 1.3%–1.7%
Notice the final figure landed inside the usual range — but it got there by deduction, not by copying. The difference is that you now know which number in the chain to fix when costs rise: is it the lead cost, the show-up rate, or the close?
Why the percentage rule isn't enough on its own
A percentage assumes every project is equally hard to sell, which isn't true. A project in a sought-after district at a competitive price may sell on half the percentage. A first project from an unknown developer in an emerging location may need double — because it isn't only buying ads, it's buying trust nobody has built yet. The percentage is an output, not an input.
Where the budget actually goes
The split we find effective in residential projects, varying by project stage:
- Brand and positioning: 10%–15% — spent once, serves the whole project
- Production (photography, film, CGI): 20%–25% — assets reused throughout the campaign
- Paid media: 40%–50% — the moving part, redirected weekly
- Website, landing pages and measurement: 10% — the cheapest and most neglected
- Sales gallery and print: 10%–15%
When the budget is large and the problem isn't the budget
When cost per qualified lead keeps climbing despite better targeting and creative, the cause is usually outside marketing: a price above comparable units in the district, unit sizes that don't match the area's buyers, or a delivery date the market doesn't believe. Doubling the budget here buys you wider reach to the same rejection.
«A budget cannot fix a product. The most it can do is deliver it faster to more people — so if the offer isn't convincing, you've bought a more widely distributed rejection.»
