Facebook Ads for Local Service Business (Case Study)

The Brief

A local service business in the landscaping industry, based in the United States, approached us for help with Facebook ads. The business had been running ads internally with satisfactory results but sought better outcomes and a higher return on investment (ROI). The owner wanted to increase engagement, lead generation, and sales through paid Meta (Instagram and Facebook) ads.

The business was looking to expand its market share, increase brand visibility, and boost sales and lead generation. Despite previous efforts, they faced challenges in understanding the technical aspects of Ads Manager, defining successful campaigns, and improving ROI. Their primary goal was to increase leads and sales, with a secondary goal of enhancing brand awareness.

The target audience consisted of two key segments: retail customers and wholesale customers. By targeting demographics, interests, and other relevant data, the aim was to build trust in the brand, reach new potential customers, and ultimately increase the customer base by leveraging the unique selling points of their premium services and products.

What Did We Do?

To identify the most suitable audience segments, we tested various groups based on demographics, broad categories, demographics combined with interests, and warm audiences. Through this process, we quickly identified patterns and insights that helped refine our targeting strategy.

Once the right audiences were identified, we leveraged social media and site traffic data to create effective lookalike audiences. This allowed us to upload custom lists and let Facebook find more potential customers with similar characteristics.

To build trust and engagement, we combined the client's organic social media strategy with low-cost ads, targeting warm audiences and engaging new ones. This approach helped in aggregating social proof and showcasing reviews and testimonials from satisfied customers.

We faced some challenges with the new ads account and pixel, which required seasoning and proper conversion tracking. To address these issues, we used audiences from a previous account and lookalike lists. We also began seasoning the pixel with traffic campaigns while installing conversion pixels. Once conversion events were in place, we transitioned the campaigns from traffic to lead generation, ensuring better tracking and optimization.

The client expressed high satisfaction with the campaign's performance. They noticed a significant increase in business activity, directly attributing the change to the Facebook ads.

"I used to run my own ads, and it was okay… I had a call this morning with one of my sales guys and he can’t believe how busy that he is. And he asked, 'What’s changed?' And the only thing that has changed a lot is the Facebook ads."

Despite the impressive results, the client chose not to increase ad spend further due to limitations in their workforce. They plan to address this issue in the coming year to fully capitalize on the potential of the ads.

"The reason we didn't spend more on ads, even though we were extremely busy, is that if we had spent more and got more jobs, we couldn't have done them. We didn't have enough men to do the job. But next year that will not be a problem. In fact, it's coming in the fall that won't even be a problem. You're looking at basically a 60% profit margin on those jobs, and even if we double the ad spend, it would still be over 50%."

What’s Next?

Given the seasonal nature of the business, our current focus is on brand awareness and nurturing warm leads for this quarter. In the next quarter, we will shift our focus back to lead generation and driving sales. To achieve these goals, we are strategically splitting the budget between top-of-funnel, middle-of-funnel, and bottom-of-the-funnel efforts.

We are working to identify baseline cost per result (CPR) metrics and aim to improve these by testing different variables, including audience segmentation, copy, and creative elements. Currently, the campaign costs are stable, and we are maintaining a strong ROAS.

Looking ahead, we will take over organic social media management to provide a more strategic approach and ensure consistent follower growth through a well-planned content strategy. Additionally, we will launch a Google Ads campaign to capitalize on search traffic, further boosting lead generation and sales.

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Facebook Ads for Local Service Business Further Information:

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