Every agency quotes "it depends." Here are actual ranges instead. The Malaysia and Singapore figures below are the bands we see across the client accounts we manage in those markets — real, first-party, aggregated data. The Australia figures are different: curated from published third-party sources, not our own managed accounts, because we don't yet manage a large enough AU sample to publish first-party figures — each AU band carries its own source link and verification date so you can check it yourself. Use all three to sanity-check what you're paying now — and read the methodology note before you quote them anywhere.
Unlike the Malaysia and Singapore figures above, these are curated from published third-party industry reports, cross-referenced across sources where possible — not aggregated from shakalakaa's own managed accounts. Every band below links its source and the date it was verified. Vertical-specific AU figures (aesthetic clinic, dental, interior design) are not yet published — we couldn't source them with enough confidence this round, so they stay gated rather than guessed. See our Australia practice page and AHPRA & TGA Ad Compliance Checker.
Deep-dive pages by industry & market
Also see the live ad cost ticker, the citable facts library, and The State of Digital Marketing in Malaysia annual report.
Use this data
This is the shakalakaa Digital Ad Cost Index — published under CC BY 4.0, free to reuse with attribution. A read-only JSON version is available at /api/benchmarks.php (optionally filtered with ?market=my or &industry=aesthetic_clinic). If you cite a figure from this page, link back to this page as "Data by shakalakaa" — or use the embeddable widget to drop a live, self-updating figure straight into your own site.
Methodology
These ranges are aggregated from the client accounts we manage across Malaysia and Singapore, expressed as bands rather than single figures. They are directional benchmarks for sanity-checking your own numbers — not guarantees. Your actual costs depend on treatment mix, location, seasonality, offer strength and competitive pressure. We review and update this page quarterly.
Review history
- 2026-07-27: v24 A3: added au group, curated from published third-party sources (rockingweb.com.au, cross-referenced against wordstream.com), NOT first-party like my/sg. Only cross-industry Google Search CPC and Meta CPC/CPM bands are published with real sources; vertical-specific AU bands (aesthetic clinic, dental, interior design) are verify_gate:true with [null, null] since no defensibly-sourced band was found for them this session.
- 2026-07-26: Added my.live_commerce group (v20 Live Commerce spec), verify_gate:true — structure only, no shakalakaa session data aggregated yet. No page reads this group; the live-commerce ROI calculator is 100% user-input. Gate clears when S confirms real ranges (spec §N4).
- 2026-07: Ranges reviewed against aggregated managed-account data; Singapore cost guides (Meta, dental, interior design) published from the same dataset.
How to use these numbers
- If your cost per lead is well above the top of the band for your vertical, the usual culprits are targeting, tracking or landing-page fit — not budget.
- For clinics, the number that matters is cost per booked consultation, not cost per raw lead — a cheap lead that never shows up is not cheap.
- For interior design, track budget-fit qualified lead rate, because unqualified renovation enquiries cost your design team real hours.
- Compare management fees against the retainer table — below the floor, an account cannot get genuine ongoing optimisation.
- Running campaigns across Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong at once? See our cross-border marketing guide for why a blended regional average understates or overstates each market.
Want these numbers for
your actual account?
See how we'd structure your budget, or read the full pricing breakdown.