I would say I'll spend about $2,500 this year on advertising... Just because I think that's all I need, but if it gets slow I have a couple things I want to try out...
In my opinion the number (vs $) to keep an eye and adjust according to desire is the % of sales. If wanting to significantly grow a business it could go as high as 12-15%, but the larger a business is the lower it can go % wise. An OO can be virtually zero if they have strong referral, internet & relationship marketing (should really book face to face sales time as advertising if you pay yourself a salary).
Our adv budget for our 2 cleaning divisions combined is about 8% of sales. Restoration is about 2.5% I believe and retail about 10%.