“Do Facebook ads work?” Every new client asks for some version of it, usually right after telling us about the agency that burned $6,000 and delivered a pile of junk leads. The honest answer is yes, for some businesses, under some conditions. For others it’s a slow way to light money on fire. This post sorts out which camp you’re probably in.
Do Facebook ads actually work, or is it mostly hype?
They work. Meta (Facebook and Instagram) still puts your offer in front of an enormous number of local people for a fraction of what the same attention costs on Google. Plenty of service businesses build a real chunk of their pipeline there.
But “work” depends on what you’re asking the ads to do. If you expect Facebook to behave like Google, where someone types “emergency plumber near me” and you show up, you’ll be disappointed. Nobody scrolling Instagram on the couch is shopping for a water heater.
That one difference explains about 80% of the horror stories we hear.
Why do they work for some businesses and flop for others?
Google captures demand that already exists. Meta creates it. Those are different jobs with different economics.
On Google, a person with a burst pipe is already typing. You pay more per click, but a big share of those clicks are ready to buy today. On Meta, you interrupt someone who wasn’t thinking about you at all. Most of them will ignore the ad (that’s normal). A small slice will be interested, and a smaller slice will actually book.
So Facebook ads tend to work when the purchase is considered rather than urgent, when the price is high enough to absorb a longer path to a sale, and when your offer is easy to understand in about three seconds. They tend to flop for pure emergency services, for very low-ticket jobs, and for any business that can’t follow up on a lead within a few minutes.
Which kinds of service businesses do well on Meta?
From the accounts we manage, the pattern is pretty consistent. Remodelers, roofers doing full replacements, landscapers with design work, med spas, cosmetic and implant dentists, and estate planning attorneys can all make Meta pay. The common thread is a bigger job, a visual result people want to see, and a decision that takes a few days or weeks.
Plumbers and HVAC companies are the interesting middle. Emergency calls belong on Google. But Meta can be great for the maintenance plan, the system replacement, and the “my 18-year-old furnace is on its last legs” homeowner who isn’t in a panic yet.
Healthcare and legal need extra care. Meta restricted detailed health targeting years ago, and legal ads have their own ethics rules by state, so the creative and the audience setup look different there.
Is $10 a day enough to make Facebook ads work?
Usually not, and it’s worth understanding why before you try.
At $10 a day you’re spending about $300 a month. If your cost per lead lands somewhere in the $30 to $60 range (very roughly, and it varies a lot by market and offer), that’s maybe five to ten leads in a month. Meta’s system needs a steady stream of conversions to figure out who your best prospects are. Ten leads a month isn’t enough data for it to learn much, so you end up paying for guesses.
Our rough rule is that you need around $1,000 a month in ad spend before Meta has a fair shot at proving itself for a local service business. Below that, a simple retargeting campaign aimed at your website visitors and past customers is a smarter use of a small budget than trying to find brand new buyers.
Why am I getting leads but no customers?
This is the one that hurts, and it’s the most common complaint we hear.
Meta’s instant lead forms make it very easy for someone to hand over their info with two taps. Easy to submit means easy to submit by accident, or on a whim, or while half paying attention. You get a flood of form fills and a trickle of people who pick up the phone.
Here’s a simple example with made-up round numbers. Say you spend $2,000 and get 80 leads. That looks like a $25 cost per lead, which sounds great. Now say only 12 of those people answer when you call, and 3 book a job. Your real cost per booked job is about $667. If the average job is worth $400, you’re losing money, even though the dashboard looks fantastic.
Flip it. Spend the same $2,000, add a qualifying question to the form and a text message that goes out within a minute, and maybe you get 40 leads but 14 answer and 7 book. Cost per booked job drops to roughly $286. Fewer leads. Better business.
This is why we track every ad dollar all the way to revenue instead of stopping at cost per lead. The cheap-lead number is the most misleading metric in the whole account.
How long before I know if it’s working?
Give it at least 60 to 90 days with a real budget and real tracking. The first two weeks are mostly Meta learning, and judging results in that window is like judging a restaurant on opening night.
What you can check early is whether the basics are sound. Are leads actually coming in? Is someone responding to them fast? Can you tell which leads turned into paying customers? If you can’t answer that last one, fix your tracking before you spend another dollar, because no amount of ad optimization can compensate for flying blind.
Are Facebook ads worth it for a small business?
If you have a considered-purchase service, a budget of $1,000 a month or more, and a way to follow up quickly, yes. We’d say that with some confidence.
If you’re a one-truck emergency operation, put your first dollars into Google and Local Services Ads, and come back to Meta once that engine is running. And if you’ve been burned before, ask the next person pitching you one question first. “How will I know which of these leads turned into revenue?” A vague answer tells you everything.
If you only remember one thing
Facebook ads don’t work or fail on their own. They work when the offer, the follow-up, and the tracking are all in place, and they fail when any one of those is missing. Before you decide the platform is the problem, check the other three. They usually are.
