But which one is better? 

Facebook ads or Google Ads (formerly Google Adwords)?

Which one is more effective?

And which one should you use? Or should use both? 

Prefer To Watch A Video?

Every advertising situation is unique. And to answer these questions correctly depends on many variables, such as: 

I will outline the differences between both platforms, which one is better suited than the other by going through several scenarios and examples. Use these scenarios to apply to your current situation. 

So my goal with this post is to help you understand both platforms' strengths and weaknesses and give you additional ideas for targeting potential customers and to make better decisions for your own campaigns.

Ready?  Here we go…

A note before we get going - when we reference Facebook Ads, we’re talking about both Facebook and Instagram Ads. Facebook owns Instagram, and when you run ads on Facebook, they run on both platforms. 

Using Facebook for Your Target Audience

Scenario:
Imagine you run a boutique clothing store that specializes in trendy, eco-friendly fashion for young adults. Your primary target audience includes environmentally conscious individuals aged 18-35 who value style and sustainability. 

Why Facebook Ads?

Using Google Ads for Your Target Audience:

Scenario:
Suppose you own a plumbing service that provides emergency leak detection and restoration in a specific city. Your target audience includes homeowners and landlords who need immediate plumbing services.

Why Google Ads:

Using Facebook Ads Based on Budget:

Scenario:
You run a small online jewelry store with a limited marketing budget. Your goal is to increase brand awareness and engagement without spending a large amount of money.

Why Facebook Ads:

Using Google Ads Based on Budget:

Scenario:
You own a local law firm specializing in criminal law. Your primary objective is to attract clients who are actively seeking legal advice or services in this niche. Keep in mind, Google offers two core ad solutions: Google Ads and Local Service Ads (LSA). The former is pay-per-click (PPC), and the latter is pay-per-lead. Google only offers LSA in a small niche of industries (e.g. plumbers, lawyers, electricians, appliance repair, etc). (read our related case study comparing cost per lead for attorneys with Google ads vs Local Service Ads (LSA)).

Why Google Ads:

In both scenarios, the choice of platform is influenced by the nature of the product or service offered, the target audience, and the specific goals of the advertising campaign, all while considering the allocated budget and desired cost-efficiency.

Using Facebook Ads for Specific Objectives:

Scenario:
You are launching a new line of fitness apparel and want to create brand awareness and engage with a community interested in fitness and wellness.

Why Facebook Ads:

Using Google Ads for Specific Objectives:

Scenario:
You run a software company offering project management tools and your objective is to generate leads and conversions from businesses looking for such solutions.

Why Google Ads:

In both examples, the choice of the advertising platform aligns with the specific objectives of the campaign: Facebook for creating brand awareness and community engagement, and Google for targeting high-intent users for lead generation and direct conversions.

Using Facebook Ads for Specific Ad Formats:

Scenario:
You own a travel luxury travel company that specializes in tailor-made itineraries and wants to showcase the beauty and excitement of your trips through engaging visual content.

Why Facebook Ads:

Using Google Ads for Specific Ad Formats:

Scenario:
You run an online electronics store and aim to drive sales through ads that directly link to your product pages with clear pricing and product information.

Why Google Ads:

In both scenarios, the choice of the platform is aligned with the type of ad format that best showcases the product or service. Facebook is chosen for its strength in visual and interactive content, ideal for creating a desire for experiential products like travel. In contrast, Google is preferred for its direct, information-rich ad formats that are effective in driving sales for product-based businesses.

Understanding user intent is vital in choosing the right advertising platform. Facebook and
Google caters to different types of user intents, and here are examples to illustrate when to use each platform:

Using Facebook Ads for Specific User Intent:

Scenario:
You run a lifestyle brand that sells eco-friendly home decor. Your target audience isn't necessarily actively searching for your products, but would likely be interested once they see them.

Why Facebook Ads:

Using Google Ads for Specific User Intent:

Scenario: You own a personal injury law firm. Potential clients in need of your service are likely to actively search for attorneys only when they are in an accident.

Why Google Ads:

In these examples, Facebook Ads are chosen for their strength in reaching users based on interests and behaviors, suitable for products or services that benefit from discovery and visual storytelling. Conversely, Google Ads are preferred for targeting users with immediate, specific needs, making it ideal for services requiring urgent solutions.

Understanding the competitive landscape is crucial when choosing between Facebook and Google ads. Each platform has its own dynamics in terms of competition, and here are examples to illustrate when one might be more suitable than the other based on competitive focus:

Using Facebook Ads with a Focus on Competition:

Scenario:
You own a boutique fitness studio that's entering a market with several established gyms and fitness centers.

Why Facebook Ads:

Using Google Ads with a Focus on Competition:

Scenario:
You run a local home appliance repair service. The market has several well-established competitors who have been serving the community for years.

Why Google Ads:

In both scenarios, the choice of the platform is influenced by how best to position and differentiate your business in a competitive landscape. Facebook is chosen for its strengths in building brand identity and engaging with competitor audiences through creative content, while Google Ads are preferred for targeting users actively searching for services, including those of competitors, and capturing immediate demand.

In conclusion, the choice between Facebook and Google ads depends on your specific business needs, target audience, and advertising objectives. 

In general, use Facebook ads when your goal is to build brand awareness, engage with a specific demographic based on interests and lifestyle, and create a community around your brand through rich, visual content. Facebook is ideal for products and services that benefit from discovery and storytelling. 

On the other hand, choose Google Ads for targeting high-intent users who are actively searching for specific products or services. Google Ads excel in direct response marketing, lead generation, and reaching customers with immediate needs, particularly effective for businesses offering solutions to urgent problems. 

However, for a comprehensive marketing strategy, consider using both platforms. 

Combining Facebook's strength in creating brand awareness and community engagement with Google's ability to capture active searches and immediate needs can provide a well-rounded approach, maximizing reach and effectiveness in your digital marketing efforts.

Who this post is for?

That want to learn how to fill their sales funnel using Facebook Ads. You will DISCOVER that successful lead campaigns are not only possible but can be used on an ongoing basis to generate a steady flow of mortgage customers.

In this post, I will share six secrets that set you up in the right direction with winning campaigns that generate ongoing mortgage leads.

Our goal with Facebook Ads is to reach the ideal target customer with an ad at the right time – when a prospect needs your mortgage products, and then increase the likelihood of conversion for you, the mortgage advertiser, once the prospect sees the ad.

Our targeting is achieved via Facebook's ad platform – one of the most amazing and robust ad platforms ever offered to advertisers.

Case Study Results: 5 to 10 Leads Delivered Daily

Campaign overview: this lead generation campaign was run in northern California targeting first-time home buyers and first responders. Ad budget was $100 - $150 per day. 

Leads are the top purple line, lower line is cost per lead.

Case Study Results: 5 to 8 Leads Delivered Daily

Campaign Overview: This campaign is running in the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. The campaign is targeting new construction, ground-up developments, and home renovations. 

And regardless of the changes by big tech companies to limit consumer tracking, for example, consumers using Apple's iOS or with Google products, Facebook's ad platform has not lost a step. Facebook still cranks out mortgage leads when you have the correct pieces in place.

To increase the likelihood of conversion, however, we need to reduce friction (built-in skepticism, reluctance to listen to your message and offer) during the ad process.

How is this achieved?

1. First, effective creative (messaging/copy and imagery) so that you build rapport quickly and lower resistance to your messaging.
2. Second, through targeting the right people and cutting out the waste of showing your ad to people who are not interested

In this post, I will use case study examples and go over the most critical factors of a successful Lead Ad campaign so that you can profitably generate mortgage leads on an ongoing basis to fill your sales funnel with eager customers, and feel confident you are saving time and doing it right.

Stay with me here...

What Are Facebook Lead Ads?

Simply put, Facebook Lead Ads are part of the Lead Generation campaign objective that allows you to capture leads right within the Facebook interface efficiently – easy for you, easy for the customer.

The Lead Generation objective is one of 11 different campaign objectives that Facebook offers advertisers. Each of these campaign objectives aligns to a different business outcome, whether that's brand awareness, traffic to your website, video views, or actual leads, as we're focused on here.

You Can Spend As Little As $1 per Day

Facebook's ad platform gives you complete control of how much you spend. You can spend as little as a dollar a day to thousands a day in ad spend. Either way, you have an amazing opportunity to succeed regardless of your budget.

And considering that your potential prospect's eyeballs are focused on Facebook and Instagram (Facebook owns Instagram) daily, you would be wise to embrace this advertising channel in some form.

Consider that the amount of time people spend on the next five most popular social apps does not sum to the amount of time people spend on Facebook, let alone adding in time spent on Instagram. So be where the eyeballs are.

Facebook Is Pay To Play

But keep in mind, without ad spend, you have no leverage on the platform. Organic non-paid posts have almost no reach or exposure whatsoever. But with ads your reach and exposure on the Facebook and Instagram is unlimited. And the larger your ad budget, the bigger your results. 

As a side note, if you have ever done a Boost Post or are considering it, here's why the Boost Post ad is NOT an effective campaign objective to ever use if your goal is leads. 

Example Lead Ad 

This ad is targeting Millennial Renters as first-time buyers. Once someone clicks on the Learn More button, the form fill opens up. Facebook will pre-fill this form with the prospects information which makes this process uber simple and seamless.

The image and the content of the form can all be edited to align with your customer avatar. You can also ask pre-qualifying questions if needed to screen out people that may not be a good fit for your particular loan program. Once someone submits their information, it can be sent to you via email, stored in a secure doc, or integrated directly into your CRM.

Benefits of Lead Ads:

6 Critical Success Factors To Successful Mortgage Lead Ad Campaigns on Facebook

You have the ability here to focus on specific customer types within Facebook. Do you want to push re-fi, target first-time millennial homebuyers, do you have a special program for first responders? 

Identify who you want to target.

Your choice here will determine the following:

Why is this important?

Your ads will have higher conversion rates and lower costs if you write ads that align to each customer segment.

Writing generic ads and trying to be all things to all people lowers the conversion rate with your ads. Lower response rates will cost you more money, and your ad will not perform as well.

How you speak to a millennial first-time buyer is different than someone financing a jumbo loan, or a cash-out Re-Fi, or a VA customer, for example. Each customer persona has different wants and needs.

Customer Persona Targeting Examples:

First-Time Millennial Home Buyers

To build our audience, we have detailed targeting such as Mortgage Calculator, First-time Home Buyer Grant, Pre-qualification Lending, etc, which gets us close, but then we narrow this down further using, "And Also Must Match," and choose additional targeting criteria that narrows the targeting. We cannot age discriminate by selecting the age ranges for millennials, so we have to be more creative in how reach them with Facebook's Detailed targeting. In addition, your ad copy and imagery will help down select for Millennials, too.

First Responders Targeting

Now for First Responder targeting,  you will have to rely more on your ad imagery and ad copy to segment out those people in that industry. Facebook's detailed targeting is limited so it's more challenging to segment specifically for that niche. This does not mean you cannot reach First Responders - you can, but your ad copy and imagery will help down select for these customers.

You can specifically target each of these personas and others too within Facebook and Instagram.

Here is an example of First Responders Facebook ad creative - in this case it is a Carousel Ad which allows the Facebook user to scroll through different images within the ad. Writing your ad with your ideal customer avatar in mind will resonate them far better than a generic ad targeting everyone. 

Compare those two ads to the home loan video ad below – it's more generic messaging, not specific to a particular customer like first-time millennial buyers or the first responders.

The bottom line is that the more you speak precisely to a customer's needs and wants, the more success you will have. The above ad might be ok for general branding and awareness but not optimal for a Lead Generation ad.

Below is an image showing the ad sets setup by customer persona (Renters, Union Workers, First Responders, Military) - to the right you can see how many leads, Reach, and Impressions. 

You want to cast a wide net geographically that will encompass the largest audience possible. So that might mean targeting a couple of counties or a 50 - 60 mile radius depending on the population density.

A good barometer to use is that if you can serve someone in the area you're targeting, and they would likely want to use you even though you might be a bit of a drive, then target that area to start with.

You can continually refine your targeting later, too, if you find it's too wide geographically and you're getting leads that are too far away.

What is important is that you make your initial audience as large as possible. Facebook's algorithm works better at delivering ideal results with a larger data set.

Here's an example of targeting three counties in northern California. You can also do radius targeting (e.g., 20-mile radius from your office) or you can type in zip codes, city names, among other geographic targeting options.

One of the additional options for geotargeting is down-selecting to one of the below options.

You can toggle between these two options and see the audience size change within the Facebook ad interface while you're building the ad and before it is published live.

Using the option, People living in our recently in this location, allows you also to target people who are home shopping in areas that they don't currently live in versus just people living in that specific area, which is the second option.  

Here's where you see the real power of Facebook targeting – Interests, Behaviors, and Demographics. Facebook has unrivaled consumer behavior signals you, as an advertiser, can utilize.

Because you're advertising mortgage-related products, you are subject to the guidelines of the Fair Housing Act and Facebook's policies to prevent advertisers from discrimination.

Mortgage and real estate ad campaigns are labeled a Special Ad Category by Facebook so some targeting options are not available that otherwise are for a different niche.

But fret not…

LOTS of leads are still there for the taking to fill your sales funnel to the brim. 

In this example, I'll use first-time home buyers.

Potential interests and behaviors:

Keep in mind; this is just a sample of some of the interest options you can use for first-time home buyers. You would also modify these targets, of course, if you were targeting VA, or Re-Fi, etc. But for this example, we're looking for people that have an interest in:

There are many more targets than the shortlist above.

How great are those Interest targets? 

These are unambiguous clear signals that allow you to get in front of the right person that needs your services.

Now let us focus this even more...

If your customer avatar is renters looking to buy their first home, you would also consider layering on the following interests as an - AND - operator – meaning they must meet both the above criteria AND the below, allowing us to down-select for potential first-time buyers:

Now you have narrowed your targeting on the customer persona of first-time buyers.

No other platform provides that level of targeting with so much flexibility and control over all aspects of your advertising campaigns.

You can use a similar approach to target any number of different customer avatars that you want – Teachers, First Responders, Cash Out Re-Fi loans, FHA, Jumbo loans, and more.

One of the more compelling reasons why using Facebook ads to sell mortgage products and services is so effective is that you can retarget people that interacted with your ad (i.e. clicked on it), but never submitted the form to you. For whatever reason, these people either got cold feet or were distracted and were just not ready to submit their information. 

This is normal consumer behavior.

But Facebook has a solution for us advertisers.

We can create what is called a Custom Audience from those people that interacted with the ad but did not submit it. You would choose Lead Form, then click Next.

And then choose the 2nd radio button option in the drop down. Leave retention to 90 days (the max that it can be set to). Give it a recognizable name and click on Create Audience.

Once you have created your Custom Audience, you can use it now in an ad with copy and creative specific to those specific people. Instead of targeting that we used under Interests, Behaviors, and Demographics, we will use this saved Audience as our targeting - there's no need to down select for anything else.

Budgets are critical to success and will directly impact how many mortgage leads you get. Therefore, the larger your budget the more leads you will acquire.

What's the correct monthly budget?

How much should I spend on Facebook ads?

The answer to that question depends on many variables such as your goals, what marketing budget you have, audience size, competition, and more,

BUT…

Here's a process you can use to determine the proper Facebook ad budget. Start here and adjust as you see the campaign results. (a related post here, how should you spend on google ads).

Since we are focused on lead generation, start with an estimate of the cost per lead and back into the spend you need to reach your goals.

For example, If the cost per lead is $10 and you wanted on average 50 leads, then you would start with $500 per month in ad spend.

For mortgage leads, the cost varies from $10 to $40 per lead on average. Your mileage will vary, of course, and not everyone that signs up is ready for a mortgage at that immediate time. So perhaps start with a reasonable $15 per lead cost – just as a starting point and adjust as you see the data.

So, if you wanted to generate 33 leads, you would need to spend approximately $500.

But the bare minimum ad spend you could set for one month with Lead Generation as the campaign objective is $300. You can set lower budgets, of course, with different campaign objectives, not with Lead Generation. With lower ad spends it can be hard to generate results ideal results as Facebook has a harder time learning. 

The next step is to estimate your lead to customer conversion rate. How many of these will convert to actual customers?

This is the point where marketing leaves off, and your sales processes and sales skills come into play.

How quickly did you respond to the initial lead? Do you have a program that meets their needs?

For those who are not ready to sign up, do you have a lead nurturing campaign for those leads that adds value and builds rapport ongoing?

All these factors play a role in the percentage of prospects you convert from a lead to an actual customer. And the longer you run ads; the more your sales funnel will fill full of potential prospects. 

Landing pages, in this case, are not as critical since we are using Lead Ads that capture the customer's information right within Facebook, but custom landing pages do help squeeze even more value from your ad spend.

When someone fills out the Lead Ad form and submits it, you have the lead. From there, you can include a link to a landing page after the prospect submits the form where the prospect can click through to a landing page on  your website.

Your Landing Page would have content that speaks to that customer persona needs, and includes trust marks, testimonials, background on you and specifically how you will help them – all elements that reduce friction in the sales process and build rapport and excitement for what you have to offer them.

On  your landing page, you could then include a link to your online calendar where a potential customer can book a meeting right away, or you can add a click-to-call button to get you on the phone right away.

Just as we did with the ad content with the images and copy, align landing pages use similar images and copy here, too. Always use images and copy that speak to the customer that she can relate to.

Not all the leads you capture on Facebook are ready for a mortgage at the same time. Maybe they are not sure what neighborhood they want to buy in, they are still saving for the deposit or other factors. (read this related post on Lifecycle Marketing and Marketing Automation for Mortgage Brokers)

The below infographic illustrates this point.

The volume of leads is the largest when the customer is beginning her search for mortgage products. Customers at this stage - the top of the funnel - are the least expensive since they are furthest away from needing you right now. 

As you move through the customer journey over time, the mortgage customer gets closer to needing help right now and economic value increases - these customers are the fewest and most expensive since everyone wants these leads and is bidding for them. 

How can I focus more on the bottom of the funnel where the prospects are that need my services now?

There are a number of changes you can make to emphasize people that are closer to making a decision now.

1. Add pre-screening questions in your Lead Ad form before they fill it out
2. Add pre-screening questions to your landing page
3. Adjust a setting in Lead Ads that tells Facebook to go after "higher intent" leads

Keep in mind, making these edits will raise your cost per lead.

But just because a customer in the beginning stages of a search at the top of the funnel does not mean you should avoid these leads.

How Do I Convert Leads That Are Higher Funnel, Longer Sales Cycle?

Those most successful at marketing mortgage leads will put these prospects into an email lead nurturing sequence that drips valuable, helpful content over time, thus squeezing more value out of the ad spend. 

For leads that are not ready right now, do not pitch constantly - people hate that.

Nobody wants to hear you talk about how great you are or how great your company is. 

Be a problem solver and help them through this journey.

Always have a call-to-action in your emails, of course, but make it a priority to deliver value and be helpful first and you will be far more successful with much happier customers.

Where do I start with lead nurturing emails?

So think about the most common questions and pain points these longer sales cycle customers have and include solutions for them and add value in each email that is dripped out over time.

Lead nurturing campaigns require some work upfront to get them going – creating the content that you're delivering, pacing the email delivery out over time, are you including any behavioral signals for when the emails are triggered? Will you be using a more robust marketing automation platform? But once these email campaigns are going, the ongoing maintenance is less.

Read our related post here on the benefits of Lifecycle Marketing and Marketing Automation and how it can significantly scale your lead generation efforts. 

In Summary:

Facebook ads are a powerful way to fill your sales funnel and reach potential customers on an ongoing basis that need your services. 

If you're a mortgage broker or loan originator looking to generate leads from Facebook ads, these are the 6 most important factors to consider.

Related Posts:
Common Facebook Campaign Questions and Answers

Mortgage Broker SEO

And you can further segment this audience to write killer copy that speaks directly to that customer segment. You likely have multiple customer segments that are interested in laser hair removal. You can segment women and then men and use imagery and copy that speaks to each segment's needs. Segmentation is essential. Avoid using general imagery and copy that tries to appeal to everyone but appeals to no one. 

Targeting Mommy Makeover Prospects 

With this audience, we’re identifying women who have spent years raising their kids and want to focus on themselves now - they want to look and feel better. You likely have a range of services you can offer. For this audience, we build it using several different demographic and behavioral signals. We found 31,000 - 37,000women we can reach with our offers. We can segment on:

Skin Procedure Audiences (blemishes, moles, tags, etc.)

Many people in their 40s and over are dealing with skin issues from being in the sun in their earlier years. You can target men or women for this. In this case, however, we segmented for women with additional targeting. We found 36,000- 43,000 women from the 35 - 65+ age range with kids. 

Demographics:

Interests:

Targeting Women That Like the Outdoors and Physical Fitness

It’s not uncommon for moms that like the outdoors and physical exercise that is outdoors that have been exposed to the sun and have skin issues. This segment of female customers could benefit from body and face services to wellness and vitality services. 

Now, in this particular targeting example, we narrowed the audience by requiring that they must also have an interest in Physical exercise, in addition to having at least one of the other targets.

This segmentation allows you to focus your ad creative (images and copy) on precisely the type of person you’re targeting. By doing this, you can create a far better response. 

Birthday Specials & Women Focused on Appearances

Finally, do you offer any birthday specials or discounts? How about targeting women that have a birthday in the coming week and have the following interests:

This segment has a focus on appearances, and there are likely many services you could offer them combined with a birthday special. This audience has 62,500 - 73,500 women in the greater Temecula area. 

Social Media Advertising Best Practices

Finally, marketing campaigns that leverage exposure in different channels and are integrated will deliver the best financial results in terms of overall marketing success. By investing in SEO but ensuring you have website retargeting campaigns enabled with Facebook and Instagram ads ensures you are showing ads to site visitors coming from search. And don't forget Google ads - still one of the most effective advertising tactics. (related post here on Google Ads for beauty salons). And one last tip - read my post on the Unstoppable Lead Generation Technique which applies to med spa will skyrocket leads non-stop.

Need help with your social media marketing?

Schedule a quick call below with me or visit our office if you're local. I'm an open book with digital marketing and happy to chat with you about your needs.

FAQs

Do Facebook Ads Work for Realtors?

Yes, Facebook ads for realtors work. Successful real estate marketing has to include Facebook ads as part of the marketing mix.

Facebook Ads can help you capture leads (seller and buyer leads), increase traffic for open houses, and maintain your brand with your target audience - whether that is a future homeowner, current homeowner, or real estate investor.  

Your future prospects are on Facebook in higher numbers and for longer periods of time than any other marketing channel bar none. 

Your success with Facebook Ads depends on your strategy, consistency, and ongoing campaign adjustments.

With Facebook ads, an entire world of potential opens up for marketing real estate.

How Much Does It Cost to Run Facebook Ads for Realtors?

You can spend as little as $1 per day. And there is no upward limit on your ad spending. Your business goals and campaign objectives play a factor in your Facebook spending. And results are proportional to your ad budget. 

Why Facebook Ads for Real Estate Agents?

Because the Facebook ad platform offers an unrivaled rich, diverse, and deep level of ad targeting options that no other advertising platform can provide. This allows you to reach your ideal target customer very efficiently. This cannot be achieved with any other marketing channel.

What Changed with Facebook Ad Targeting to Adhere to Fair Housing Guidelines?

But these changes have had minimal impact on the results you achieve because you can drill down on other exact interests that define your ideal target customer. Plus, you can produce and write ads that appeal to specific audiences, genders, and ages. 

So read on if you want to know how best to run ads that deliver results.

What you need before running ads:

Proven tactics that generate results.

We have tested these ad strategies in our agency with real estate clients nationwide to generate buyer listings, seller leads, awareness for open houses, and omnipresent awareness with the target audience in local markets to more effectively farm territories.

The benefit to you: a shortened learning curve that has been tested, which you can implement now!

Read our related post on marketing to all levels of the real estate sales funnel using Facebook ads, and using Facebook ads to grow seller listing leads.

3 Core Pillars of Success for Real Estate Ads on Facebook

Campaign Objectives

Many beginning their ad journey are introduced to Facebook ads with the infamous Boost Post, which is part of the Engagement objective – you should stop using that now as most of that ad spend is wasted (related post here on why and another post here on Boost Posts vs Facebook Ads, which is better?), and there are far more effective campaign objectives that align to business goals. 

The Engagement Objective (i.e., Boost Post) is solely focused on:

• Likes
• Shares
• Comments

These are vanity metrics. With this objective, Facebook seeks people in your audience that are likely to like, comment, or share on almost anything. And you can't deposit likes, shares, or comments in the bank. 

Ad Targeting - Essential for Success

The targeting you choose (i.e., interests) for your ads is one of the most critical determining factors to success and your ability to generate seller listing leads and buyer leads.

Why?

Show your ads to the wrong audience, and it doesn’t matter what else you do or what you offer. You won’t be successful.

The best part is that with Facebook's ad platform, you can be precise and targeted, so your ads show to your ideal prospects, and you get results that deliver leads. But equally important, you have Facebook's ad algorithm behind your campaign working to deliver results. Remember, it wants you to succeed and is very effective at learning to deliver results over time. 

The Buckets for Facebook Ad Targeting:

So without further ado, here are the 10 proven Facebook ad tactics for realtors (not in order of importance).

The main benefits of Lead Ads are:

Below is a realtor Lead Ad example for seller listings.

After the prospect clicks on the "Learn More" button, they are taken to the next step. In this case, the realtor added an optional pre-qualifying question - Are you Buying or Selling?

You can ask different types of questions that what is displayed here, and more questions, but you do have to be careful. There is a proportional decrease in the number of leads (i.e., conversions) as the number of questions increases. And some questions can get your ad disapproved. 

Most importantly, though, asking for too much information is like meeting someone you have never met before at a networking event and right away they ask you a bunch of questions - it's not going to go over well and will likely put you off. 

After the prospect clicks the "Sell" or "Buy" button, they are taken to the contact form. Facebook fills this information in automatically, so it makes the process seamless for the user to submit their information to you. This example is on a mobile device.

The intent of a consumer in the buying or selling bucket has a higher likelihood of needing a real estate agent among a whole host of other products and services.

Facebook knows these consumers from its rich behavioral data sets that include online and offline data about these specific consumers.

Here's a short list of some of those relevant interests:

This is only a partial list. Needless to say, Facebook knows what sites these potential Buyers and Sellers are visiting and how often, among other sources of data, that indicate the prospect's interest in buying a home or selling their current home. 

Targeting Real Estate Websites:

What’s MOST important about targeting sites like Zillow, Realtor.com and others is that these companies spend big dollars ($$$$) creating brand awareness for their apps and driving people to their websites. They are sending millions of people to these websites to actively look for properties, or trends in real estate, estimated home values, and more. Facebook knows who these people are, and they are available to you to target. You are benefiting from the ad spend these companies are investing in traditional and digital marketing!

Example of Audience Size with Buyer and Seller Audience Targeting

Suppose you're a realtor in San Diego that focuses your real estate efforts in the northern part of the county. 

With the above Interests and geotargeting of 15 miles in San Diego (15 miles is the smallest geotargeting for Special Categories of Real Estate and Mortgage), we identified an audience of 1.3m to 1.5m - a large audience indeed. 

When is an audience too large in Facebook?  

For specific ad types (Lead Ads and Lead Generation), large audiences are more effective. Facebook works off of data, and the more data it has, oftentimes, the better it performs at achieving your campaign objectives. So, no, this is not too large of an audience, depending on the campaign objective and your ad budget. 

For brand awareness and related campaign objectives with a smaller budget, I would narrow this down with further income, age, and geography segmentation. 

Can you segment and identify people in specific income demographics? 

Sort of...

But I thought you said Facebook won't allow you to segment on income?

You cannot explicitly segment on income within Facebook for real estate, but the workaround requires a bit of creativity. Segment on other interests that you know your ideal customer has in these income brackets. 

For example, what if you wanted to target people with 6-figure household incomes. 

Consider the following sample of segments:

This is a good-sized audience within the geographic targeting selected above - between 500k and 600k people. 

Home evaluation leads can be one of the most effective real estate ad campaigns you can run to fill your pipeline with new prospects.

The below Facebook campaign generated seller listing leads consistently at less than $6 per lead by running an ad with free home valuations. You can pique people’s interest in their home valuations by showing them what other homes are valued at.

And the cost per lead from this campaign:

Real estate testimonial ads on Facebook can be very compelling at building trust and social proof with your target customer.

Social proof and trust are critical to growing your long-term lead generation efforts. (read my related post on unstoppable lead generation technique.)

You can build testimonial ads with past home buyers and sellers as single image ads, carousel ads, video ads, and more – there are many options.

And you can land the ad traffic on a page on your website with the testimonials proudly displayed.

Running testimonial ads is more about ongoing branding – part of creating that digital yard sign and creating omnipresence and mindshare in your community.

Testimonial ads are powerful social proof. And remember, if you use a Brand Awareness campaign objective, you can advertise for as little as $1 - $5 per day.

If you’re going to create a steady flow of leads ongoing, you have to be branding yourself, too…not just focused entirely on seller leads (a related post here is helpful for understanding real estate Facebook ad strategy at different levels of the sales funnel).

Example of a Video Ad of a home tour for a buyer lead:

How much exposure can you get with video ads?

Imagine 65,000 impressions in the area where your target customer lives for pennies per view - $0.01-$0.05! 

Where else are you going to advertise where you can get someone to view your ad for pennies?

Another reason why Facebook is such a powerful platform for you.

If you’re not embracing what Facebook has to offer, you’re missing a significant opportunity.

Many advertisers do very little planning, but…

If you plan around the season, calendar events (holidays), and your properties, you will be far more successful.

Below the screenshot is the campaign planning guide in Excel that you can download to help get you going – there are 3 tabs (I’m only showing you one here) that will help you plan and organize an effective Facebook campaign.

Postcards, flyers, door hangers, and local community papers are still standard tactics for creating awareness for realtors within the geographic area you’re farming for real estate leads.

But, did you know…

You can create a Custom Audience of all the people that go to your website from these direct mail campaigns or other traditional marketing. People will see your website address on your postcard and manually type it in on their phone or desktop computer to learn more. 

And here's a trick: 

If the URL is not user-friendly (e.g., it's super long and you can't put it in direct mail pieces), you can buy a vanity URL that redirects to your existing website or landing page and track everyone that went to that specific URL. For example, BestRealEstateSanDiego.com that redirects to a specific landing page or website, and only those people are captured in your Facebook Custom Audience. 

This tactic extends the life of your expensive traditional marketing efforts into the digital channel where you can market to that person in Facebook ongoing for up to 6 months. We call these integrated marketing campaigns. And the benefit is higher ROI on your ad spend because you extended the life of your traditional marketing dollars. It costs very little to do this. 

Did you know you can see what ads your competitors are running? 

It's easy.

You can use this to see what they are up to what properties are they pushing. What are their image and copy like in their ads? How many ads are they running? You can use this also to build up a swipe file of ad ideas you can leverage in the future. 

But keep in mind, you cannot see how much they are spending or what ad targeting they're using. 

Here how to see their ads and what you will see. There are two ways to get to a page's ads and it depends on what version of a business page they currently have. 

Method 1: 

Go to a realtor's Facebook page and scroll down the left-hand menu and you should see a section called Page Transparency. Click here. 

Once you click on Page Transparency, you will see a button titled, Go To Ad Library - click on that.

And if the page has ads running, you will see them listed; and if they do not you will not, you will not see any ads. This example shows this realtor’s Facebook page launched two ads in August (below). 

Method 2: 

If you don't see a section for Page Transparency on the left-hand menu, go to the page's About section and then click on, See All.  

Retargeting Audiences - Custom Audience:
If you have a customer list of a decent size (at least ~200 people), you can load that audience in Facebook and retarget it with ads. Perhaps these are people purchased some time ago and may be good candidates for selling or even buying a second home. You can run inexpensive ads to these audiences to maintain mindshare and brand awareness. 

Lookalike Audiences based on your customer list:
What if you could find people with very similar Facebook profiles to those in your past customer list? Those people will be a good fit for your real estate services too. 

This is another workaround to the targeting limitations that Facebook applies to real estate. While you can't segment on demographics like income, gender, age, and education, loading a list like this already has ideal segmentation. 

To summarize, I presented 10 Facebook ad strategies for real estate that included campaign strategies, ad types, and audiences that you can implement for improved success.

If you want to grow your lead real estate leads this year and gain a solid competitive advantage over your slower, less sophisticated peers, Facebook ads for real estate will help you secure your niche and capture more leads and sales.

The tactical ad strategies presented above are just the tip of the iceberg – many more targeting options exist.

With Facebook, you can be incredibly targeted and endlessly creative in how you sell real estate and reach the home buyer or seller audience.

Don’t let your competitors steal your customers!

If you need help with your local Facebook advertising, we can help. Please call or email today and find out how we can help you win in your market.

Related post: Common Facebook Ad Campaign Questions and Answers

If you’re not utilizing Facebook ads to reach your customers, you are missing out on one of the most effective advertising channels to reach them. And the worst part, if you’re not promoting your restaurant with Facebook ads, your savvier competitors likely are and stealing your customers and growing sales.

Facebook is an incredibly robust and flexible platform for businesses enabling many to easily reach their ideal customer segments. You can even target special niches within the restaurant and food space too. Do you want to target event planners, group dining, private dining? That’s all achievable with Facebook ads too.

In this post, I outline why Facebook ads are so important for creating awareness for your restaurant, and give you six killer ad tactics to consider so you can create more business (including catering).

Below is a summary of what we are covering.

Who Is This Post For?

This post is for any restaurant managers, owners, or staff that want to understand how to effectively use Facebook and Instagram ads to grow their business.

Why you need to use Facebook ads to promote your restaurant

It's no surprise that digital marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways to reach new restaurant customer. And Facebook advertising is arguably one of the best at reaching customers at the right time. As the old saying goes, be where your customers' eyeballs are.

Facebook is hands down the number one social media channel in the world.

Your customers are there in the largest concentration out of any other social channel. And the vast majority of your customers access Facebook or Instagram (Facebook owns Instagram) multiple times per day of which the majority are accessing it via their mobile phone­. Pair these stats with the below statistics and insights (Source: Facebook Quarterly Report):

From the perspective of marketing and advertising, mobile usage with your target customer is a big deal, and you’re probably not leveraging it well. 

Your potential customers are not carrying around the newspaper, or a magazine and checking it multiple times per day – but they are checking Facebook and Instagram via their mobile phones multiple times per day. 

Consider also that many of your restaurant competitors are not very savvy with online marketing and are still over-relying on inefficient and wasteful traditional marketing.

While traditional marketing has its place, there is a real opportunity for you to get in the game ahead of your slower, less digitally sophisticated competitors.

Facebook Is Pay-to-Play

Forget About Facebook Organic Posts – There’s No Exposure Without Ads!

Don't expect your page posts on your restaurant's Facebook page to drive results. Almost nobody sees those posts as Facebook has reduced your exposure from page posts to low single digits of  your page's fan base (i.e. 2% - 4%) of your fan base.

So what this means is that if you had 1,000 fans, you would reach maybe 20 people at best. Without ads, you have no exposure to anyone on Facebook (this is true of almost all social channels – without ads your ability to have an impact in social media is limited).

However, this does not mean you should stop organic page posts - you still need to post up good content to your Facebook page, but realize that real tangible business results such as growing new customers or repeat customers happens with ads. 

Different Skill Set Required For Running Ads

In addition, running ads on Facebook is a very different skill set than posting content on your page. Facebook has one of the  most robust advertising platforms which means there are many levers, options, steps, and decisions that you need to take to set up a winning restaurant ad campaign.

For example, Facebook has more than 10 campaign objectives that align with different business goals. Each campaign objective has an algorithm behind it designed to achieve that goal. So, your choice in campaign objectives is the first essential step to a successful campaign. 

So, depending on the creative you have at hand and what business outcome you are trying to achieve your objective will change. Here are 3 of the most common campaign objectives for restaurant and food companies. 

And if you're running Boost Posts (a campaign objective similar to Engagement), here is a related post about why you should not be running the Facebook Boost Post.

Incredible Demographic Targeting Possibilities With Facebook Ads

A Niche Spanish Tapas Restaurant Facebook Ad Targeting Example­­­

Below we are using Facebook Ads to find people in the Houston area that like tapas or tapas bars, or have a household income that is in the top 50% or higher of US households, AND that have an interest in Spanish Cuisine. From this we can see there are 11,000 people we can target.

All the chosen variables in this example can be modified, refined, added to, to create even more precise targeting. So think about this for a moment – what other advertising platform can you down select for an audience like this? There is none!

Fast Casual Restaurant in Manhattan, NYC, Facebook Ad Targeting Example­­­

Lets assume you have a fast casual restaurant in midtown Manhattan as an example.

We can target people that have an interest in competitor restaurants in midtown Manhattan. For this example, we selected Chipotle Mexican Grill, Qdoba Mexican Grill, El Pollo Loco, and Panera.

As you can see below, we are targeting a relatively small area around part of Central Park. Facebook is telling us that there are 8,000 people here that have an interest in those competitor restaurants. The options inside Facebook for being precise in your targeting based on interests, likes, and behaviors are many. I am showing you just a fraction of what’s possible.

Facebook or Instagram Ads?

A quick note about a question we get often which is, should we run Instagram ads too? 

Facebook owns Instagram and as such it is one of the placements Facebook will automatically use to show your ads.

Facebook decides for each ad impression to someone in your ad targeting that if it can achieve the goal at the lowest cost by showing the ad to the user over on Instagram it will show your ad there. Conversely, if Facebook believes the result can be achieved at a lower cost on Facebook it will show the ad to that user on Facebook.

You can choose to run your ads only on Instagram, however, anytime we have forced the ads to show only on Instagram the results are far more expensive. Unless you have a very good reason to force your restaurant ads to show on Instagram, the best option is to let Facebook's algorithm make choice. 

It helps if you have a calendar planned out in advance for the year for each month by week. If it is summer and you have great salads, showcase your salad options.

Alternatively, if it is Mother’s Day, showcase the food items that will resonate well with families and moms.

Below is another example of targeting for Mother’s Day – perhaps your restaurant has a Mother’s Day brunch special, and you have fun activities planned for young kids as well.

Below we are able to find families within 10 miles of San Diego that are parents with kids of ALL ages that also have household incomes in the upper 25% of household incomes.

Mother's Day Targeting Example

For example, if you are promoting an Irish pub, and you have an Irish band, target the below people on Facebook.

Below we pulled everyone in Los Angeles within 5 miles of downtown that likes craft beer, beer festivals, etc, AND then they must like Irish cuisine, Irish pubs, Jameson Whiskey, and more Irish targets.

Promoting Restaurant Entertainment Example

There are a couple of ways to target past customers for your restaurant on Facebook.

Restaurant Gift Card Purchases

There is nobody more likely to buy gift cards from you than your past customers. Facebook can be used to sell gift cards directly to all your past visitors. And considering that a large percentage of gift cards are never redeemed, that's cash flow and profit that falls to the bottom-line. 

After you click the button, Create Lookalike Audience, you will see a screen similar to the below. Here is where you can tell Facebook how "similar" you want this Lookalike to be to your current audience. The selection of similarity is from 0% to 10%, the latter of which will be the least similar but broadest audience. So what selection is right, then? So without knowing more about your particular restaurant ad targeting situation, I would create several Lookalikes at different levels of similarity to your customer database and test them to see what delivers the best results. 

However, with Facebook ads, we can make our traditional marketing much more effective. Facebook ads can easily integrate with your other traditional marketing efforts to improve response rates (in marketing we call that "Lift"). 

It’s no surprise that integrating efforts like this improves overall response from your other traditional advertising – multiple channels and multiple impressions helps push the customer closer to a conversion.

A consumer survey found that on average, people need more than 12 sources of influence before making a purchase decision (source: Think With Google). If people hear a radio ad, or see a print ad, and then also see a targeted Facebook ad they are that much closer to becoming your restaurant customer.

So for example, if you are doing any print marketing like mailing out postcards to a USPS carrier route around your restaurant location, why not also run Facebook ads in those same neighborhoods as well? It's particularly effective if you run your Facebook ad right before you drop the postcard and then for some time after you drop the postcard. Don’t rely on just that one impression from the postcard which most end up in the trash.

Alternatively, what if you’re running local radio ads or a TV commercial? Did you know you can target radio listeners of specific radio stations and TV shows on Facebook?

Seattle Sports Bar Example:

In the below example, I’m targeting men in Seattle between the ages of 22 - 55 years that listen to Fox Sports Radio, watch ESPN, like the Mariners and the Seahawks. We can reach 94,000 men.

If you leverage Facebook ads and integrate them into your traditional marketing tactics, you will improve the “lift” or response from the traditional advertising tactics and will see better results.

Example Now Hiring Facebook Job Ad

Restaurant job ads typically get very good mileage - meaning your job budget goes far. For this ad we were able to reach 85,630 unique people and close to 160,000 impressions. This ad ran for about 6 weeks. 

Different Types of Facebook Ads For Your Tactics

Facebook offers different ad formats for showcasing your restaurant’s promotions, brand, or specials.

You can be incredibly creative with Facebook ads, and there are many ways to promote your restaurant with rich media. Your ad type will depend somewhat on what creative assets you have, such as, images, or video.

Facebook Restaurant Ad Examples

Single Image Ads: these are the most common type of ad and run with only one image. These are fine and work well in Facebook for restaurants, but there are more options to utilize rich media and more creativity.

Video ads: do you have nice video content? Maybe you had a promotional video made? For example, you can highlight the kitchen as the dishes are being prepared if you're a higher end restaurant. One of the best experiences I have ever had was at a restaurant in downtown Cleveland sitting at the chef’s table – I had a front row view of how the kitchen was operating, and it was completely fascinating.

Video ads will stream through a user’s newsfeed and are on mute until they choose to hear the audio by tapping on the video.

And if you choose the Video Views campaign objective, you will likely get views on your video for pennies each view! As an advertiser, the Video Views campaign objective provides amazing mileage for your ad spend. 

Carousel ads: Maybe you have a 3-course executive lunch special. Or perhaps you have multiple images of different dishes, or you want to showcase Friday night entertainment. 

Carousel ads are similar to single image ads except you can put multiple images in each ad. With carousel ads, users scroll horizontally through different pictures of the lunch special. In this case, you could show each item with a call-to-action on each image.

Carousel Ads give people a better sense of what you're promoting since multiple images are being shown.

Or another idea, maybe you have several different offers – you can use carousel ads to highlight each type of promotion allowing people to scroll easily through each promotion to find the most appealing.

Facebook Ads Manager

So, if you're ready to dive in to learning how to run Facebook Ads yourself, the first place you need to start with is the Facebook Ad Manager. If you have the time, Facebook provides many resources to dive in and learn from the basics of how to setup your ad account, business manager, to ad strategy. 

But if you don't have the time to setup and learn the Facebook Ads Manager, it can be overwhelming if you don't spend your days running ads, consider having us setup the campaigns for your by clicking the link below. Or we can offer a concierge service of ongoing ads management that we'd be happy to discuss with you - you can book a time here and find a time that works for you. 

Related Post: Common Facebook Ad Campaign Questions

Facebook determines your location and suggests businesses nearby that offer Wi-Fi. The user can visit the business’ Page or view directions to the location in their navigation app of choice from there.

The bottom line: Facebook is increasing the visibility of businesses with complete profiles which offer free WiFi … for FREE! (for now, at least).

Wait, Facebook will advertise your business page for free? Yep!

If you have more activity on your Facebook page, like “Check-Ins”, Facebook will even push your business higher when people are searching for businesses like yours.

Why should I give my guest free Wi-Fi anyway?

If you’ve already got Wi-Fi in your business, then you’ve already recognized how useful this can be. Even if you’re not a public-facing business and only get the odd visitor to your business, any customer that can access your wifi is grateful for piggy-backing onto your Internet connection as it will often be faster (and cheaper) than using their smartphone or tablet for internet access. If you’re running a business like a cafe or a restaurant, then your guests will probably be expecting free Wi-Fi.

Aside from all the other benefits, we’re discussing, free WiFi encourages people to stay longer in your business, and spend more money while they are there. For the sake of a few extra dollars every month, it’s a no-brainer.

Free Internet Access Means Increased Free Social Exposure To Thousands

In a world where everyone is a content creator – meaning people can post pictures, videos, audio, or text that they create themselves – you’re increasing the likelihood of customers taking photos and shooting video at your location, which they want to share on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat. (And many of you are already aware of how important user-generated content, or UGC, is.)

More check-ins, social shares, images, or videos of your place of business and engagement with your Facebook Business Page will improve how it ranks in Facebook search and the Nearby tab on the Facebook mobile app.

Facebook Check-Ins for FREE Social Exposure To Thousands

If you’re not super familiar with Facebook, then you need to know about a Facebook feature called “Checking In”. This means that people who visit your business can share on Facebook that they are at your place of business. People can “Check-In” on their smartphones, tablets, and laptops.

The simple act of “checking in” is a big checkmark in the box for your business’ social profile. It’s a big thumbs-up from a real person saying, “I am here!”. That’s free advertising since that check-in update goes into the newsfeed of the people that person is friends with. That’s a lot of free exposure when you consider the average person has more than 200 friends – now multiply that exposure by 5 people, 10 people, and hundred people and you can see that exposure grow.

However, to get this free exposure and to increase the likelihood someone will check-in and grow your social exposure, you need to set up Facebook wifi access.

The older frustrating and antiquated way of allowing customers to connect to your WiFi does not allow this.

The old way: Sarah comes to your business, she may be coming for a coffee, a meal or a meeting. She wants to get on the Internet, so she goes through the following steps:

1. Scans for available wireless networks on her phone and she finds a network with the same name as your business
2. She can’t connect so she has to ask someone for the password
3. You give the password to her
4. She is online

This older path to connecting to your wifi will not prompt the customer to check in on Facebook.

Compare to The new way of connecting to the Internet with Facebook WiFi

• Sarah scans for networks and connects immediately to your network without a password, and without troubling you.

Benefits To Your Business By Providing Facebook Wifi

Number one benefit: Free social exposure with automatically prompted check-in requests.
Facebook prompts for check-in as soon as she connects; her phone will popup asking her to check in on Facebook (this is a key difference from the older method).

And it’s this automatic prompting for a check-in that gets you more free exposure to Sarah’s friends. Immediately, that check-in hits the newsfeed of many of her friends letting them know that Sarah is at your business – free advertising.

This prompts more conversations to start amongst her friends:

• “I was there last week!” or,
• “They have amazing food!”

In fact, every comment by another user exposes your business to hundreds of other people as each person’s comment can potentially be seen by all their friends – exponential growth in free social exposure!

Better yet, descriptive check-ins, especially those with photos, offer a burst of social proof. That sort of advertising would cost good advertising dollars that you are now getting for free every day.

Number two benefit: Facebook prompts for page “Likes.” After your guest checks in, they will be asked if they also want to “like” your Facebook page, so you can continue to connect with them on Facebook (this will allow you to remarket to them later which I’ll explain more shortly, just keep reading…)

Ok, so now that you see the benefit and potential to get your business FREE exposure on Facebook, how can you start leveraging Facebook Wi-Fi?

What Are The Other Benefits of Facebook WiFi? Lots of other pretty cool things…

 1. Gain Demographic Insights Into Your Customers:

Within your Facebook Audience Insights, you can see activity like how many guests liked your page, their age, gender, location, etc., this is data gold about who your customers are that can be used to market to them later both organically and with paid ads. Below is a sample of demographic insights from a Spanish Tapas restaurant.

And additional insights on languages spoken:

is was only a sample of the deep demographic data Facebook can provide to you about your customer base.

2. Increase Repeat Visits, Brand Awareness, and MindShare with Facebook Remarketing (and for very little in ad spend)

Now that you have insights of profiles that have visited you, liked your page, and checked in, you can build a Facebook remarketing ad campaign to reach out to these past customers on an ongoing basis to maintain mindshare, brand awareness and bring them back! How great is that? What other marketing tactic allows you to so easily reach out to past customers?

The other benefit of remarketing ads is that they typically cost very little money to run.

As an example, a restaurant using Facebook remarketing ads can promote an upcoming special day like Mother’s Day, a new item in your menu, your Friday night entertainment, or your catering services. Bring these past customers back by retargeting them! This is a no-brainer tactic.

One Final Killer Facebook Ad Tactic To Grow Customers – Lookalike Audiences

Lookalike Audiences Based On Past Customers That Have Checked-In:

Lookalike audiences are a Custom Audience. A Custom Audience is a special term in Facebook for an audience you define based on some data set like a customer list you have uploaded or people that have checked in as in our case.

The Facebook algorithm finds people that have similar profiles and demographics to the existing audience of checked-in customers that you can run ads to. This is another very powerful way to inexpensively reach other potential customers that have a high likelihood of becoming a customer. After all, the people most likely to buy from you are your existing customers, but the next most likely group is going to be people that have similar interests, behaviors, and demographics as your existing customers.

How To Setup and Leverage Facebook WiFi 

Setting up Facebook wifi is straightforward. There are three prerequisites to set up Facebook Wi-Fi for your business:

1. You must be an admin of the Page you want to connect
2. Your Page must have a valid address
3. You must have a compatible router

Facebook has specific routers and instructions per router on how to set up Facebook wifi – click here to see which routers support Facebook Wi-Fi and how to set up each

Also, note that only Pages with valid locations can use Facebook Wi-Fi, so you’ll need to create a different Business Page for each location of your physical business locations.

If your guests don’t have a Facebook profile, you can give them a password to allow them to skip the Facebook check-in, or you can allow guests to skip it without entering a password.

Wi-Fi users are segregated from your main business network, so they cannot access your PCs, laptops, servers, or any other equipment on your computer network. So, don’t worry there is no downside to allowing your guest to use your Wi-Fi.

When your guests come back, their mobile device will automatically check them in again to the WiFi network.

Wrapping It Up

To summarize, Facebook WiFi provides a significant number of benefits to restaurants that most of your competitors are not doing, and most importantly, costs you very little to implement.

• Free local social exposure with potential new prospects via check-ins and page “likes” via Wifi access
• Increased exposure within Facebook with people searching in Facebook
• Demographic insights about your customers that can be used for better marketing
• Retargeting campaigns to grow repeat visits and maintain mindshare with your customers

We appreciate and welcome your comments or questions below.

How long does it take to launch a Facebook Ad campaign? 

• From start to finish, including getting access to your Facebook page, setting up the ad account, campaigns, ad sets, and ads can take anywhere from several days to 2 weeks approximately. Timelines depend on several variables including how soon we get access to a page, ad approvals, and client feedback.  We send ads for your final approval on copy/creative. Then they are submitted for review by Facebook and once approved start to run.
• If you're a business that falls within Facebook’s “Special category” (mortgage leads, real estate, credit, housing) Facebook has very strict ad guidelines. And as such, it is common to have Facebook reject your ads. When ads are rejected, we resubmit requesting a review. This can take a couple of days with no specific time-frame provided by Facebook. Once Facebook confirms you are compliant (Facebook will look at your privacy policy, website, etc. and other sources) it normally approves the ads.

What should I expect after my Facebook Ad campaign goes live?

• Depending on the campaign type that is launched, results can vary. Some campaigns will produce results within days, some may take longer.
• Facebook campaigns go through a "Learning" phase that is controlled by Facebook's algorithms while it learns how best to deliver results. Our team monitors your campaign closely and we can provide you with insights. For example, below are some guidelines as to when we start to see results (keep in mind, these are not set guidelines and timelines can take much longer depending on a host of variables).

Where can I see my Facebook ads when they are live?

• On the left side of your Facebook page there is a section labeled Lead Ads Center. This is where you can see the ads that are running. If you do not see this section, we will need to look into what type of rights you have (you must be an admin of the page) to be able to have access to this section. If you do not have admin rights we will guide you on how to get your page role updated to admin rights.

What if Facebook rejects the ads after submitting them for review, what other steps are/can be taken?

• Every campaign is unique. Depending on the response from Facebook, we take one or more of the following steps:

How does Facebook charge me for my ads?

• Facebook charges advertisers (you) to show your ads on their platform and network partners, depending on the campaign type is how they charge for showing your ad. Here are some examples:

How does Facebook bill and how often do they?

• Facebook bills for ads in arrears - this means it lets you accrue ad expenses and then it charges you later. Facebook also sets threshold limits. At first, these threshold limits are set to $25.00. Once you hit that threshold in ad spend, Facebook will charge you. As your campaign matures, Facebook typically increases the threshold amount.
• Facebook bills you if your campaign reaches one or more of the following:

What should my Facebook ad budget be?

• If you're a client, we will make budget recommendations to you based on your campaign goals, potential audience reach and geotarget (some geographic areas have more advertisers which leads to more competition and higher cost for your campaign objective)
• Budget is always approved by you, you can make adjustments at any time

Where do I find my Facebook personal page URL so that I can be added as an admin to my business page?

• You can find your personal page URL by going to your personal page > page settings > general > page URL

What happens if I get no leads from Facebook?

• We will assess your campaign and ensure all critical elements are in place. We make adjustments once the campaign is out of it’s “Learning Phase” so until then we typically don't edit campaigns.

Why is my CPL (cost-per-lead) high?

• CPL (cost-per-lead) varies quite a bit depending on many variables, some of which we list below.

What are the typical results for a Lead Generation Facebook campaign in terms of CPL (cost-per-lead)?

• Typical cost per lead cost ranges from $5-$45 for mortgage or real estate leads
• Every industry and niche is different

How long does it take to see results from my Facebook Ad campaign?

• When a campaign goes live, the ads are in the “Learning Phase” for 5-7 days (this varies greatly and is something Facebook controls). From our experience, we typically see campaigns start to produce results within 2-5 days from launch.

How do you add us to your Facebook business page?

• Our team will request admin access to your business page. Facebook will send a notification for you to accept our request. You can find the notification in your email (linked to your personal account) or in the notifications section of your business page.
• If you do not see the notification, you can add us directly to your business page.

Where does Facebook show my ads?

• Facebook campaigns are set to automatically show and deliver your ads on its platform, which also includes Instagram, and its network partners. Facebook delivers your ads automatically depending on the device the user is on below is an example of how they appear.

Facebook ads for salons works so well that you can now create a steady flow of ongoing leads every month for many different salon retail services - lash extensions, hair, brow, nails, Brazilian blowouts, and more.

If you’re searching for beauty salon Facebook advertising ideas, the strategies outlined in this post will demonstrate to you how you can skyrocket your sales and lead generation efforts using Facebook ads (a related post here on med spa marketing is a good read on developing your overall marketing strategy).

What You Will Learn

In this post, I will show you, through demonstration and actual results, the 9 most critical factors necessary for a successful Facebook marketing campaign that will produce a steady flow of leads month after month for your salon.

Equally important, however, is that many of your salon or spa competitors are stuck in the dark ages and have not embraced Facebook ads. So you have an advantage - seize the opportunity.

Follow the below recommendations and you are on your way to rapidly growing your sales.

Who is this post for?

Any salon or spa manager, or owner that offers salon services such as hair styling, hair cuts, coloring, blow dry, nails, eyelash extensions, and other retail beauty services, such as, but not limited to the following:

The good thing about Facebook advertising is that you have almost unlimited ability to reach your ideal target customer with ads.

I will use lash extensions as a retail service to demonstrate how to target your ideal salon or spa customers to get leads that convert to sales. The Facebook advertising approach we’re demonstrating here is a similar strategy with any salon service.

At the end of this, you will know the essential elements necessary to generate a list of customer leads from Facebook ads (see below). Read our related post here on Google Ads For Beauty Salons. 

The below screenshot shows a partial list of customer leads from one such Facebook ad campaign. Imagine accessing leads like this on a daily basis - eager fans wanting your services. And these Facebook leads are you unique to you and delivered right within your Facebook page where you can easily access them. You can also integrate them into a CRM if you have one as well.

Consistent Ongoing Flow of Leads

Below is a line chart showing how many leads came in per day and the cost per lead each day. All the leads had a first name, last name, email address, and phone number so they can be contacted right away and booked for an appointment.

These Facebook campaigns can produce leads as low as $3. 

Your mileage will vary, of course, depending on many factors (product/service you’re promoting, competition, seasonality, etc). But the good thing is that we’ve successfully run these lead generation campaigns from the northeast to the southwest and everywhere in between in the US with similar results, and you can find the same success, too. 

466 Total Leads from end of September to mid-December

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For this post, I will show you the essential success factors for running a Lead Generation campaign that uses Facebook Lead Ads – arguably one of the most effective Facebook ads for salons. (read my related post Unstoppable Lead Generation Technique for a more in-depth read on utilizing lead magnets and lead nurturing to skyrocket leads evern more. 

What is a Facebook Lead Ad, you ask?

Lead Ads are a special Facebook ads that allows you to capture salon customer leads right within Facebook. 

What makes Lead Ads unique?

They are super easy for you, the advertiser, to set up and use, and even easier for the potential customer to use and send you her contact info.

With Lead Ads, there is no need to set up a landing page (more on that later) or forms that a prospect must awkwardly try to fill out on a mobile device.

Lead Ads capture potential customer information right within Facebook using a form that Facebook will prefill with the customer’s information. All the customer has to do is hit the Submit button and away goes their contact info to your inbox.

The 9 Critical Success Factors To Capture Salon Leads

Each of Facebook's 11 campaign objectives aligns with a different business goal.

For example, Brand Awareness, or Reach (showing your ads to as many people as possible), or Engagement (related post here on why you should not use the Boost Post option, which is the same as an Engagement campaign objective).

But for our discussion right now, we are choosing the Lead Generation campaign objective designed to deliver customer leads to you in the form of Phone Calls, Messages, or Lead Forms that you can collect the customer’s name, phone number, and email address. So our example is using Lead Forms.

So step one is to choose Lead Generation as your Facebook campaign objective.

You likely have many salon products and services that you offer. If you have a limited budget, how do  you decide which service or product to promote?

Your choice here is driven by several factors:

1. Which salon service or product provides the most profit?
2. Which service or product are you the best at? Which differentiates you from others?
3. Which service or product has the most demand from existing customers and least competition?

Other considerations include, do you have imagery or video content to display and demonstrate the product or service in an ad? For example, before and after pictures, or a video of the product or service.

Because Lead Generation campaigns are a direct response advertising tactic, the more specific you can be with what you are promoting, the better. 

What you want to avoid is a general ad such as, Contact Us About Our Full-Service Salon Services. Or an ad that is more branding oriented reflecting a social cause that you're aligned with. These types of ads have their place, but Lead Generation is a direct response marketing tactic so you have to appeal to the immediate need and pain points of the customer to get good conversion rates. 

What always works better is specificity, for example:
Book Your  Appointment For An Initial Set of Lash Extensions - $89.

Includes the exact product  you offer, a price, and a call-to-action.

And when you are more specific with your ad, you can tailor the ad imagery and copy to that specific service or product and the unique needs of the customer, which then affects how you choose your Facebook ad targeting as well (we'll get to more of that in a moment). For this example, we can specifically identify people that have an interest in lash extensions.

For for our purposes here, we’ll use Lash Extensions as a service.

Ad targeting is where Facebook really shines and rises above all other ad platforms – its advertising offers unmatched targeting abilities for you as an advertiser.

For this campaign, we are drilling down into the following customer features of our ideal customer persona and women we know that will highly likely be interested in our services.

Facebook offers the following general buckets for Detailed Targeting:

Here are more targets as well – people that have an interest in eyelash extensions.

Keep in mind that as you layer more targets, your audience size will change. What’s important is maximizing the size of your audience with the right balance of Interests and Behaviors.

Your targeting will change depending on the product or service you’re advertising.

If your salon was advertising its Hair Stylists and hair-cutting, coloring, and styling services, here's an example of the targeting you would use to find local customers (related post here on using Google ads to find local customers):

What if your salon is advertising its blowouts? Here's the targeting you can use to find women interested in blow dry services. 

Imagery:

Because Lead Ads are a direct response marketing tactic, hone in on the product or service features and benefits for your ads - be specific. Make sure you choose an image that reflects the service. Consider before and after images if you have.

If not, use a service like Adobe Photos to find a quality image. 

For example, for lash extensions, this image reflects the look you might have after receiving this service. Don't make it hard for people to understand what you're selling. On mobile devices people are scanning their newsfeed quickly so use images that have an impact.

Copy:

People buy the benefits of your service.

Write your copy so it reflects your product or service's most important benefits.

Here's an example of  those benefits for lash extensions:

Offer or Discount:

Direct response conversion rates are almost always better with an offer. 

For example:
Introductory offer - $50 off your first full set. Only $49.99 Now!

Do not be afraid to promote an aggressive offer. People are often hesitant to promote a service at a discount. 

But here's why you should consider discounted offers. 

Consumers react to "deals." 

But you might be thinking, but I'm going to lose profit. And while that's true, the catch here is every customer you have has a lifetime value far beyond one service, right. I know salons where the yearly value of a customer is over $1,000. 

So, with discounts, you acquire more leads and get more people booking appointments and you will make far more money on the long-term value this customer will provide to your business than what you might give up on the initial service. 

I recall a salon that was offering an initial set of lash extensions for $39.99 - he was giving the service away. But he knew, once they come in the average customer is worth more than $1,000 in the first year. So would you rather make $60 more on the first service, or $1,000 over the course of the next year?

Call To Action:

With Facebook Ads, you have several options for the call-to-action button. Since we want appointment leads choose, Book Now:

Whether you’re in an urban, suburban, or rural area will determine how you should set your geographic targeting for your ads.

Some of the smallest geo-targeting is a 1 km radius – appropriate in a densely populated area like NYC. However, if you’re in a suburban area, your customers are likely willing to drive 5 miles, perhaps 10. And if you’re in a rural area, 10+ miles is not unreasonable for a customer to drive to see you.

Facebook provides many options to target the locations that are ideal for you – you can target by state, city, county, zip code, a radius by dropping a pin on a map, and more.

As we discussed with Interest, Behavior, and Demographic targeting, you also want to maximize your audience size here, too, so go as wide as you reasonably can. Of course, you can always adjust the targeting later if you find you’re getting people too far out.

For example, here I typed in Del Mar, CA. You will notice a slider that you can drag out to include a larger target area, or you can click, “Current city only.” So choose the widest radius you can reasonably go here to maximize your audience.

You can also exclude geographic areas where you do not want your ads to show but use that sparingly again to maximize the audience size so that Facebook’s algorithm has the most data to work with.

You will notice in the screenshot above where it says Del Mar, there’s another drop-down that is set to, “People living in or recently in this location.”

The below screenshot includes all the options– select the first drop-down option.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, Facebook is pay-to-play. Larger ad spends equate to more exposure and more leads.

Start with your sales goals. 

Salon and spa lead costs vary, but a reasonable place to start is to assume $12 per lead and back into the spend (based on historical data from many campaigns we have run in the past, but the cost per lead can range from $3 - $20). 

If I want 40 new leads, I need to spend approximately $500 in ad spend per month, assuming $12 per lead.

You could stop right there for estimating an initial budget to reach your marketing goals.

But if you want a handle on managing your campaigns like a pro, build a simple ad spend model and track your results (here's a related post I wrote: how much should I spend on Google Ads).

Here’s a simple model with reasonable estimates you can use. This one was built using Excel.

You can then plug in different numbers into the Ad Spend Model to see how your sales and profits change.

Try lower or higher cost per lead; perhaps your average order is larger or smaller than $100; what is your closing percentage? Work the numbers and see where your profit is optimal (after all, the ultimate goal of any business is to maximize its profit).

Operations play a crucial role in the success of your marketing campaigns. For example, if you don’t follow up on leads quickly enough, if your staff is not trained well and does not have sales skills, then your investment in advertising is not as profitable.

Some people will interact with your ad but will not fill out the form and abandon the process for whatever reason. However, because these potential prospects did show initial interest, we want to retarget them and give them another opportunity to convert – this will further squeeze more leads and more value from your Facebook ad spend.

We want more than one bite at the apple.

Facebook allows us to target these looky-loos.

Here’s how:

All we have to do is create an Audience within the Audience Manager.

Once you click Next, you have more options:

Then all you have to do is click “Create Audience” and use it in your targeting which we discussed above when selecting Interests, Behaviors, and Demographics. However, in this case, you would want an ad set dedicated specifically to retargeting the Lead Ads campaign – do not add any other targeting.

Retargeting Lead Ad forms is one of the hugely compelling reasons why using Facebook ads can be so successful for leads and return on ad spend. What other advertising channel can you leverage retargeting like this?

Custom landing pages, in this case, are not necessary but will help squeeze even more value and more sales from your ad spend.

Because we are using Lead Ads, the prospect’s contact information is already captured within Facebook, so you already have the lead. But you can direct people to a landing page aligned to that product or service that the prospect sees only after they have submitted their information.

A landing page can help give them a warm fuzzy, build rapport and trust and increase conversion rates. In addition, some potential prospects will want to learn more or possibly act right now, so we want to give them that opportunity.

For a landing page, make sure to include an in-depth description of the service, features and benefits, customer testimonials, and, of course, a click-to-call phone number so they can call and book right away instead of waiting for you to contact them.

Not all leads will want to book an appointment right away for various reasons – perhaps they were distracted with other events or just not ready for whatever reason.

But…

If you can avoid it, don’t let those leads go.

Those leads you don’t close right away, put them into a lead nurturing campaign where you use email to drip them helpful content over time. You paid for this lead, don’t let it go until they either book an appointment or have opted out entirely.

There are many email service providers (ESPs) to chose from. Some that go from simple and inexpensive to robust, powerful marketing automation platforms. Whatever you decide, email drip campaigns are hugely effective at squeezing out even more value from your initial ad spend and not hard to set up.

So to wrap up successful Facebook ads for beauty salon products and services that produce leads:

Related Post: Common
Facebook Ad Campaign Questions and Answers

Instagram-worthy tableware and table linens will help your photos and your customers’ photos look even better. Photos of food should be taken up-close and from a side angle. Be sure to have good lighting and enhance color brightness with a photo editing software if needed.

2. OFFER FREE WIFI - Wifi is very important and in some cases a necessity for a lot of restaurant customers.

Many people decide on where they are going to eat based on whether a restaurant has Wifi. Your customers want to socialize online or even get caught up on work while at your establishment so it’s important to give them that incentive to come in. Offering Wifi does not only provide a great benefit to customers, but it also provides restaurant owners an opportunity to acquire email addresses and even recognize Facebook profiles of their customers which can be used at a later point to re-market. Want to learn more about Wifi as a digital marketing strategy?

KEEP A SMARTPHONE IN THE KITCHEN Having a good smartphone in your kitchen always is worthy of your investment. Have your chefs and staff upload pictures in real-time to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms easily and quickly. Customers want to see what’s happening right now, and they want to see pictures. Pictures are an easy source of content to post online to find new customers and get them engaged with your restaurant. A smartphone dedicated to the restaurant will allow your employees to post online easily using the restaurant’s profile and not their own personal profile.

4. BE ACTIVE ON SOCIAL MEDIA Social media is one of the most powerful marketing tools for restaurant owners as it’s where your customers are spending much of their time.

Your restaurant needs to be on your customer’s minds when they are thinking about where to eat. Social media allows you to engage with your customers to keep you on their minds and bring them into your restaurant.

However, social media channels like Facebook and Instagram are pay-to-play media. No matter what you think, posting organically on Facebook will not do the trick to get your name out there. You’ll have to buy ads on Facebook and Instagram. And boosting posts is not a good idea either.

So, remember that channels like Facebook are real advertising channels and are complex to operate on as marketing tools. Learn how to do it yourself or hire someone that has the expertise to advertise on this media (and no, your young niece does not count as an expert just because she uses Facebook, Instagram). Here's a related post about Facebook Ads For Restaurants.

5. OFFER LIVE MUSIC Everyone loves a little dinner entertainment. Scheduling live music consistently at your restaurant brings people in the door as it gives you events to promote and makes your restaurant look like the place to be. Live music events also provide you an opportunity to post online, even“live” in your news feed. If you’re having a great ambiance, and are posting a live feed on Facebook or Instagram, for example, your content will be seen more frequently than if you’re just posting a picture or a promotion online.

 6. OFFER BIRTHDAY CERTIFICATES - With regards to email marketing, capture your customer’s birthdays when they opt-in to your newsletter and let them know that they will be receiving a special gift on their birthday. When it comes time, email your customers on their birthday with a special coupon for a free appetizer or dessert. Most people celebrate their birthday with a big group at dinner. Giving them an incentive to choose your restaurant on their special day can both increase your sales and introduce new people to your restaurant. Birthday offers can also be promoted on Facebook because on Facebook you can target people who are within 30 days of their birthdays (and their friends!) so you can have birthday related offers shown to people that are about to have a birthday AND who live within a few miles of your restaurant!

7. HOST WINE TASTINGS Chances are you serve wine, or at least you should be. Hosting a wine tasting event brings people together inside your restaurant for a new experience. They’ll be able to taste different wines that you serve, learn how to properly drink wine, and develop a new appreciation for it. By hosting this in your restaurant you’ll also be giving people who otherwise wouldn’t be there a glimpse of what you have to offer. Wine tastings are also a way to capture an audience online. On Facebook, for example, you’re able to target wine enthusiasts with ads so you can advertise your event to a very specific audience around your geographic area. In addition, when you bring in a group of enthusiasts, they’ll be more likely to post about your event and share it with friends. Bring props to your event to encourage even more content produced and shared.

8. START COOKING CLASSES

Let’s face it, people don’t eat out every night. But when they’re cooking your recipes that you taught them at home they will be reminded of how great your food truly is. Keeping your restaurant in your customer’s mind is key to creating a loyal customer that comes back time and time again. Cooking classes are also extremely fruitful content to publish on social media. Foodies are constantly posting and sharing their experiences online. A class is also an opportunity to post a live event on Facebook. These live events can be stored as recordings for people to view at a later time.

9. SPONSOR LOCAL EVENTS - Team up with realtors, new business opening, events at the chamber of commerce, or any other social networking event in where food can be displayed as part of the event. This is a great idea, because not only will you get free exposure, but the opportunity to have other businesses and potential customers, trying your food, starting a conversation about it, and sharing with their friends. Make sure that you set up, and perhaps offer an incentive on their future visit.

10. SHOW SPORTING EVENTS 

A lot of people want to go out somewhere to watch the big local game. Why not be the place to be to watch it?

Use big sporting events as another event to host at your restaurant. It doesn’t take, much to promote and you’ll bring in large groups of people looking for a place to stay, eat and drink for several hours. Props at these events are great to encourage people to post online about their experience. To make it even more fun for your guests, buy some props and people will be more than happy to post pictures of themselves and their friends having a great time at your restaurant! Here are some ideas from www.fathead.com.

11. HOST HOLIDAY PARTIES

Holidays are an essential time for restaurants that you must take advantage of. Almost everyone is looking for a place to have a holiday dinner with family or friends, host an office party, or just a get-together. Make sure people know that you accept reservations for holiday bookings by posting them on your website, social media sites, and in your email newsletter.The power of social media and digital marketing, in general, is that your content will stay alive on the internet for months or even longer. So, take advantage of it and extend the life of every marketing effort you put forth. Companies like www.windycitynovelties.com provide products that will make your party guests want to share online.

12. USE EMAIL MARKETING & MARKETING AUTOMATION

You need to start email marketing if you’re serious about getting customers in the door. Use email to promote new menu items, upcoming events, and specials. An email once a week to once a month will benefit your restaurant and your customers. Email has one of the highest rates of return out of any marketing tactics. 

13. OPTIMIZE YOUR BUSINES LISTING FOR LOCAL SEARCHES

Everyone now uses the internet to search for where to eat out or order online from, and there are a lot of options to choose from. You need to update/create your restaurant’s listing for local directories, otherwise, your restaurant’s website will be buried in the never-ending list of competitors. Learn how in the article here: SEO For Restaurants

14. GET ONLINE REVIEWS

Online reviews are crucial for your restaurant, not only look good to potential customers but to be found at all on Google, Bing, Yelp, etc. This is important because people trust reviews, and choosing a restaurant you’ve never been to before for a special occasion is taking a big chance. The more reviews you have, the more likely people will trust that they’re making a good decision by dining at your establishment, assuming you have mostly good reviews that is. How To Respond To Negative Reviews Online

Being a strong player through online marketing strategies will pay off for your restaurant. More importantly, ensuring all your promotional efforts are also taking advantage of digital media will allow those efforts to prevail longer than the night of the event, or the mailer you sent out. When you post and promote online, you create evergreen content for your restaurant and creates an online footprint that will be difficult for others to follow.