Let's talk Meta ads.
I had a great conversation recently with a cleaning business owner who's been running Facebook ads and trying to figure out why some leads are great and others stink. Sound familiar?
Here's the honest truth: Facebook leads are cheaper for a reason. You're paying around $10 a lead because those people weren't looking for you. They were scrolling through their feed and your ad interrupted them. Compare that to Google Local Services Ads, where you're paying $60–70 a lead, but that person typed "Airbnb cleaner near me" into a search bar. The intent is completely different.
That doesn't mean Meta is worthless. It just means you have to set it up right and adjust your expectations.
A few things that actually move the needle:
Lead with pain. Your ad should open with something your ideal client actually feels (unreliable cleaners, last-minute no-shows, properties that aren't guest-ready, etc.). Then you tell them why you’re the solution.
Add friction to your forms. If someone can fill out your lead form in two taps, you're going to get a lot of junk submissions. Add a qualifying question or two. Something like "How often do you need cleaning?" or "Are you an Airbnb host?" It filters out the tire-kickers fast. We also use SMS verification so we know the phone number is real.
Test more creatives than you think you need. I run 5-10 variations at once and let Meta figure out which one wins. And keep an eye on ad fatigue. Once your audience has seen the same creative too many times, performance tanks. Swap things out before that happens.
For budget, $50/day for three days is a solid starting point to gather real data before you scale or make changes.
Meta ads aren't magic and by no means are simple to set up, but they're a real channel if you experiment and work the system.
p.s. I went viral for this guest critique. Was my grading accurate?
Until next time!
Logan
