Unlocking the Power of Meta Ads for Local Businesses

In this issue I want to explore the effectiveness of Meta ads for local businesses and brick & mortar shops.

In the past 10 years, I have worked with many local businesses across different industries, including restaurants, construction material stores, bakeries, trampoline parks, and real estate developers.

All these businesses can benefit from Facebook Ads if done right.

Meta Ad products (Facebook, Instagram & Whatsapp) can be powerful tools to overcome these challenges, reach local customers, and drive foot traffic to your shop.

By the end of this issue, you'll understand how to create ads and track them correctly to benefit your local business.

Let’s take a stab at it.

Why Local Businesses Struggle with Meta Ads

The primary reason why many local businesses struggle with Meta ads is that they don't leverage the tools available or hire marketing agencies who cannot adapt to local advertising needs.

Unfortunately, these mistakes lead to poor ad performance and wasted budgets.

But don’t worry, I’m going to explain how you can overcome these problems and make your campaigns highly effective.

Common Mistakes in Local Business Facebook Advertising

1. Generic Content and Ads

Many businesses fail to create locally relevant ad content, making their ads less appealing to local customers.

2. Measuring offline impact of the ads

Many local businesses do not have a website, or a landing page as their business operates predominantly offline.

So, the primary problem is they cannot track their media buying activities effectively.

3. Targeting mistakes

Nowadays, targeting is mostly done by Meta's Advantage+ tool.

But there is still some fine tuning to be done, such as location targeting, age demographics and languages (this is very specific to where I live).

A Smarter Approach to Meta Ads for Local Businesses

At my agency, we’ve developed a streamlined approach to help local businesses make the most of Meta ads.

Here are 5 actionable tips you can follow:

Tip #1 - Create Locally Relevant Content

Business owners or agencies often create 2-3 generic posts a week and boost them in the local geographical area.

They set up the post boost via Business Suite, cross their fingers and hope more people will walk in the shop.

Use ad content that speaks directly to your local audience.

Highlight aspects of your business that resonate with the community, such as local events, special promotions, or partnerships with other local businesses.

For example, if your shop is participating in a local festival, create ads that promote your involvement and offer special deals for festival attendees.

Offer special deals or promotions that are exclusive to your local audience.

This not only drives immediate sales but also creates a sense of community and loyalty among your customers.

For example, create a “Local’s Discount” or a “Shop Local” promotion to incentivize nearby customers to visit your store.

Tip #2 - Measure the impact of your ads with offline

Local businesses' biggest challenge is to measure the impact of their paid ads.

They heavily rely on engagement metrics such as reach, impressions, likes, shares, and comments.

However, these metrics don't tell you if someone actually made the trip to your store and bought something.

A great way to measure online advertising impact is to create an in-store offer but only advertise it online. Don't advertise it offline or in-store.

We had great success with this strategy for one of our restaurant clients. We created a campaign called "Halving Monday".

Basically, every last Monday of the month there was a 50% discount on one the products, but only in-store or pick-up (no delivery).

This way we could measure foot traffic at the store during that day.

Moreover, one week before "Halving Monday" we let the fans on Facebook/Instagram vote for the discounted product.

This created great impact amongst the local community who look forward to this offer every month.

Tip #3- Targeting Mistakes

First, it’s crucial to use Meta's location-based targeting features.

These tools allow you to focus your ads on people in specific areas, ensuring your ads reach the right audience.

Instead of targeting a broad area, narrow your focus to the vicinity around your business.

Use the "Everyone in this location" and "People who live in this location" options to fine-tune your reach. This can be found in the Ad Set where you set up your geographic location.

If you know your audience well-enough, you can narrow them by age group, as well.

Lastly, let's take a look at etnic groups and tourists.

At my agency, we usually target different etnic groups by language and create separate campaigns for each.

If not, we make sure that the creative and the ad copy is in 2 languages.

If there the business is located in a foreign touristic zone, consider creating content and targeting foreigners in English.

When people see content in their native language, they are more likely to interact with it. This is one tiny personalization hack but it reaps rewards.

*Special mention: Custom Audiences

As I said many times before, custom audiences make very tiny portion of my Facebook Ads targeting, as Advantage+ takes care of that.

However, locally they still can be proven worthy.

Create custom audiences based on customer data. If you have a list of local customers, upload it to Meta to create a targeted audience.

This can include email lists, customer phone numbers, or loyalty program members.

Additionally, use engagement-based custom audiences, such as people who have interacted with your Facebook page or Instagram profile, to retarget local customers who have shown interest in your business.

Tip #4 - Monitor, adjust and re-fresh your Offers

Finally, continuously monitor your ad performance and make adjustments as needed.

Use Meta's analytics tools to track the effectiveness of your campaigns and identify areas for improvement.

Refresh your ad creatives every 1-2 weeks, as local audiences develop ad fatigue faster, as they see your ads more frequently.

Create new offers, promotions and giveaways every few months, leverage seasonality and holidays.

Tip #5 - Leverage Facebook's Tools Correctly

Most of the time I see local shops use the Awareness, Traffic or Engagement objectives with no clear goals.

Let's start with Awareness. Never use it. It's a waste of money. Period.

You can use Traffic objective, as a last resort, when you have a third-party landing page that does not allow tracking (like a giveaway page, or online form).

Engagement objective can be effective when you want interaction on the platform.

It facilitates reactions, shares, comments. If you are organizing a giveaway or want attention on a specific post, then it's great.

But one unconventional strategy we came up with at my agency for local stores is to use Lead Ads for giveaways.

This way, you can have a database of emails, or phone numbers and later hit them up with a newsletter or an SMS blast.

Conclusion

By following these tips, you can transform your Meta Ads strategy for your local business, making it more efficient and impactful.

With the right tools and strategy, you’ll see improvements in your local customer reach, higher engagement rates, and better overall results that improve your bottom line.

Have you tried using Meta ads for your local business?

What strategies have worked for you?