Lay The Foundation: A Complete Guide to Contractor Advertising on Facebook

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So, you’re a general contractor. The great part is that you can take on jobs that you want, giving you more flexibility in your work. The bad part is that it’s not always so easy to find clients or the right clients.

Although there is a labor shortage in the construction industry, it can still be difficult to stand out from other competing contractors.

Should you go door to door? Buy air space for a radio ad? The options are seemingly endless.

But, there’s one that catches many contractors by surprise:

Facebook.

Not sure where to start? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

Let’s take a look at everything you need to know about contractor advertising.

So, Why Facebook?

You’re probably wondering why a platform that’s known for sharing pictures, videos, and news articles would make be a great part of an online marketing strategy.

The answer is actually quite simple. Facebook ads give you the tools to get extremely specific when it comes to targeting your niche.

This will ensure that when your audience sees your ads, it’s relevant to them. This, of course, will result in a greater likelihood that people want to learn more about you.

Let’s look at a brief example:

David is a general contractor in southern Florida who specializes in roof repair. He’s looking to find more clients, so he turns decides to throw some money at ads on Facebook and see what happens.

David’s primary target audience is people over the age of 35 who make over $80,000 per year and live along Florida’s west coast. Although he’s been having trouble reaching his audience through other methods, Facebook ads let him target this specific type of individual effectively.

Since Facebook has so many users, he immediately gets a large amount of exposure. Over the next week, he gets more inquiries than usual about his services.

But How Do You Do It?

That’s a question with an answer that’s in multiple parts. Before you jump into Facebook advertising, there are a few things you need to be aware of, including:

How to choose your audience
Where you should be sending your audience
Customizing the ads you use
Choosing the right audience
The appropriate budget
Your analytics

We’ll go over each of these in detail.

How Do I Choose My Audience?

With Facebook ads, there are a handful of attributes you can use to narrow down your audience. Some of these are:

Gender
Age
Geographical location
Primary language(s)
General interests

For example, you can use this information to target English-speaking males between the age of 35 and 50 who live in a specific town. These people are also married and interested in home improvement.

Factors like income and education can also be used to further narrow down your audience.

So, before you worry about anything else, take a moment to visualize who exactly it is you’re looking for. The more information you can give, the more relevant your service will be to your audience.

Where Do I Send My Audience?

It’s generally understood that you should focus on getting people to your business website and not rely only on exposure. Not everyone knows where on their website to send visitors, though.

Any of the following pages are great options.

Promotional Pages

If you happen to have a deal going on for your services, a promotional page is a great place to send your audience.

But, you should make sure this page doesn’t have too much sales content on it. If it feels spammy to your potential customers, it may be off-putting and discourage them from spending time on your site.

Your Contact Page

It won’t do you much good to spend money on Facebook ads if nobody knows how to contact you.

While multiple pages on your site should have basic contact info like your email address and phone number, your contact page has additional information like your physical business location and hours of availability.

A Page About Your Services

If you offer more than one specialized service, this is the perfect spot to show off what you can do. It’s important to note, though, that not all hope is lost for those who focus on one type of service to offer their customers.

Let’s take David the roofer from the earlier example. Although he specializes in roof repair, his service page could offer more information about storm damage repair, roof replacement, etc.

How Should I Customize My Ads?

One of the best thing about Facebook ads is how straightforward they are. Since they only contain an image and text, it doesn’t take long to get things rolling.

But, this doesn’t mean that you should forego tailoring these ads to make them more effective.

Although Facebook allows ad buyers to choose from a pool of stock images, it’s best to use high-quality pictures of your own. This way, your audience will be able to see proof of your actual work.

It’s also best to run a few different ads with different types of photos to see which has more engagement. In general, more aesthetically-pleasing pictures will have better results. That is, after all, why companies hire models for product advertisements.

When it comes to text, there are a few things to keep in mind.

First, you’ll want the ad copy to take up no more than one-fifth of the entire ad.

Second, you’re limited to only 90 characters, so make those words count! This isn’t the time to give a bio about yourself as a contractor, it’s your opportunity to tell people exactly what you do.

Finally, you can utilize a Facebook pixel to see how many leads are converting through a given ad. This will let you see just how effective that ad is at doing its job.

How Much Should I Spend?

Everyone’s simultaneously least favorite and most favorite part of advertising:

Mapping out the budget.

While it’s fun to decide how you’re going to spend your money, you also have to keep in mind that you’re spending money.

It’s also not always easy to find the sweet spot where you get the most return per dollar spent.

When it comes to Facebook ads, you’re going to need more than a few bucks to see noteworthy results.

The site itself suggests that advertisers have a minimum budget of $20 per day. Given the level of competition that you face, this is far too little to get any real exposure.

Therefore, you should consider spending between $70-$80 per day to get the results you want.

Of course, this may be expensive for some general contractors who don’t have a ton of extra cash to spend on ads. But, since Facebook is by far the most popular social networking site on the web, you’re getting thousands of people per day to see your ads.

If you’re unsure about spending this much, set aside enough to spend this amount per day for 30 days straight. If your ads are compelling and you provide quality service, you should be able to make your money back (and more!) within the time period.

What Do My Analytics Mean?

The analytics is one that you need to understand and keep an eye on when it comes to Facebook ads.

Here are some of the most important values:

Reach

How many people total have seen your ads. A higher number is always better.

Amount Spent

How much you’ve spent total on your ads. If you’re running multiple ads at the same time, you can see this total, as well.

Results

How your ads have been performing. This value is dependent on your main goal.

For example, if you’re looking for your clickthrough rate to your website, you can find that information here.

Cost

This value tells you how much you’ve paid per customer action.

For example, let’s say it costs you an average of $5 to get someone to your contact page. If you get 100 people to your site, you’ve spent $500.

But, if three of those people each need roof work that nets you thousands of dollars per job, then your ads were well worth the money.

Keep Track

It’s vital that you consistently check these numbers to gauge your performance. Your results will often go up and down over time, but they should display an upward trend if everything’s in order.