Marketing Costs
Track your advertising spend, agency fees, and other marketing investments so Nabu can calculate your true cost of acquisition and marketing ROI.
Why marketing costs are tracked here
Marketing costs can live in two places in Nabu. You can add marketing as a lump-sum line item in Business Costs and it'll be included in your overhead. That works if you just want it in your cost structure.
But if you want to know which campaigns are working — cost per new client, cost per appointment booked, return on ad spend — you need the detail that only comes from entering marketing costs here, in the Marketing Costs section.
This section ties your spending to specific channels and campaigns, so Nabu can show you ROI per campaign in the Campaigns module.
Types of marketing costs to enter
| Type | Examples |
|---|---|
| Paid social | Meta/Instagram ads, TikTok ads, Pinterest ads |
| Search | Google Ads, Microsoft Ads |
| SEO / Agency retainer | Monthly retainer with a marketing agency, SEO firm |
| Influencer | Payments or service trades with influencers and content creators |
| Referral | Gift cards or cash rewards given to clients for referrals |
| Events | Booth fees, open house costs, pop-up events |
| Photo/Video production | Shoots, editing, content creation |
| In-clinic promotions | Printed materials, in-store signage, promotional gifts |
Fields
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Channel / campaign name | Something specific (e.g., "Instagram Botox Summer Campaign" not just "Instagram") |
| Category | Paid Social, Search, Influencer, Events, Referral, Agency, Production, or Other |
| Monthly spend | For ongoing spend (e.g., monthly Google Ads budget) |
| One-time cost | For single events or productions |
| Date range | When this spend applies — helps link costs to the right reporting period |
How marketing costs connect to campaigns
In the Campaigns module, you can link specific marketing costs to individual campaigns. Nabu then tracks:
- Cost per lead — how much you spent to generate each inquiry
- Cost per acquisition — how much you spent to acquire each new client
- ROI per campaign — revenue from clients attributed to the campaign divided by the marketing spend
Without entering costs here (or in Business Costs), the Campaigns module can show you activity but not ROI.
Marketing in Business Costs vs. here
| Business Costs | Marketing Costs | |
|---|---|---|
| Affects overhead? | Yes | No (unless also in Business Costs) |
| Campaign-level ROI? | No | Yes |
| Best for | Lump-sum budgets you don't need to break down | Any spend you want to analyze by channel or campaign |
You can do both. Some clinics put a rough monthly marketing total in Business Costs for overhead accuracy, and also enter each channel separately here for ROI visibility.
Common questions
Do I have to enter marketing if I'm just starting out? Enter at least your regular monthly spend so your overhead calculation is accurate. Even a single line — "Monthly marketing budget: $2,000" — is better than nothing.
What if I run one-time campaigns, not recurring spend? Enter them as one-time costs with a specific date range. An open house event you spent $800 on in March is entered with a March date range and a one-time cost.
How does Nabu calculate ROI? Revenue from clients attributed to a campaign ÷ marketing spend on that campaign. For example, if a campaign cost $1,000 and generated 5 new clients who each spent $500, revenue is $2,500 and ROI is 150%.
Should referral gift cards go here? Yes. If you give a $50 gift card to a client for referring a friend, that's a marketing cost. Track it here under the Referral category.
Payment & Financing Fees
Map your payment methods to their actual fee rates so Nabu can deduct processing costs from revenue and show real net receipts.
Services
How to set up your service menu in Nabu — including pricing, duration, and what goes into each service — so Nabu can calculate service-level profitability.