Rooted Agri Solutions — Marketing Budget & Ad-Spend Plan

The objective

Agreed in our meeting — a focused 3-month push (June → August 2026).

New clients by end Aug

R500k

New annual turnover (≈R50k/client)

Hero products: Irrigation Software + Online Consultation

The principle: spend to acquire, not to impress

A new client is worth ~R50,000 in year one (and more over time). So acquiring one for a few hundred to a few thousand rand is a strong return.

≤ R4,000

Healthy cost to acquire 1 client (≤8% of yr-1 value)

~R1,250

Modelled cost / client (well under ceiling)

10–12×

Return on a client's first year vs acquisition cost

What this means: the budget question isn't "can we afford it" — at these economics every client pays for itself many times over. It's "how fast do we want them," which is purely a function of monthly spend.

The funnel (modelled)

Conservative assumptions for a brand-new Meta account in SA agriculture, after the 3-week learning phase. We refine these with your real numbers.

Stage	Rate	Note
Cost per WhatsApp lead / conversation	~R90	Click-to-WhatsApp → RootBot
Lead → qualified grower	40%	right crop, region, intent
Qualified → signed client	18%	trust-led, seasonal sale
Net ad cost per signed client	~R1,250	R90 ÷ (40% × 18%)

Budget scenarios (steady state, per month)

Pick by how fast you want clients. Recommended start in green.

Monthly ad spend	Leads / mo	Qualified	Clients / mo	Clients in the 3-mo push*
R3,000	~33	~13	~2.4	~5–6
R6,000 — recommended	~67	~27	~4.8	~10–12
R9,000	~100	~40	~7.2	~15–18

*Month 1 is partly a learning phase, so the 3-month total isn't simply ×3. R6,000/month ≈ R18,000 over the push lands the 10-client goal with margin. This is ~3.6% of the R500k it generates — and the clients keep paying after.

The plan

Weeks 1–3 · Learn (≈R150/day, ~R3k total)

We scrape what's already converting in SA agriculture, then run 3 test campaigns in parallel: (A) Irrigation Scheduling Software / loadshedding angle, (B) Online & remote agronomy consultation, (C) a proof/result story. Each gets ~R50/day for two weeks so we find the real winner and your true cost-per-lead.

Weeks 4–12 · Scale the winner (~R6k/mo)

Pour budget into the campaign(s) that converted, kill the rest, and keep iterating creative. This is where the 10 clients come from.

Targeting

South Africa, Western Cape first (then Northern Cape) — farm owners & managers, 30–65, interested in precision agriculture, irrigation, Omnia/Yara. Click-to-WhatsApp straight into RootBot. Tight geo + clear audience is what keeps your cost-per-lead low.

Content mix (from the Studio)

~60% client pain-points (scraped from what growers actually search), ~30% your two hero products, ~10% Dirk's credibility. 4–5 organic posts/week + the daily RootBot forecast + the 3 paid campaigns. Every post follows Hook → Story → CTA.

What you fund vs what we run

You fund directly

Meta ad spend — paid straight to Facebook from your account (the ~R6k/mo above). You stay in full control of the budget.

Included in your R2,500/mo

Campaign build, creative, scheduling & optimisation
The 3-campaign test + scaling the winner
Audience & pain-point research
Weekly reporting from the dashboard
You just approve — or hand it fully to our team

Spend stays yours and visible; our job is to make every rand work harder. As real numbers come in (after week 3) we'll re-issue this model with your actual cost-per-lead and close rate.

Recommendation

Start the 3-week test at ~R150/day (~R3k), then scale the winner to ~R6,000/month. That path lands ~10–12 clients by end of August at a cost-per-client well under R1,500 — against R50k+ each in first-year value. Once we have live data, we tune it tighter.

Rooted Agri Solutions · prepared by FreedomHub · figures are planning estimates for SA agriculture and will be refined with live campaign data. Ad spend is funded directly by Rooted; FreedomHub manages strategy, build and optimisation under the monthly retainer.