40% less per lead with new Meta ads

Chuck's Flooring installs floors in homes across Upstate South Carolina and western North Carolina, from Greenville and Spartanburg to Asheville and Hendersonville. They come to the house with samples, measure the rooms and give a price on the spot. They have a 5.0 on Google from more than 130 reviews.

What we found in the account

The Meta account had been running since January and had more than a dozen campaigns. There were page likes, traffic, lookalike audiences, retargeting, website leads and instant forms, and most of them had their own audience and their own slice of the budget.

That spreads the money too thin. Meta needs a steady number of leads in each campaign to learn who to show the ads to, and a dozen small campaigns all learn slowly. It also makes the account hard to read, because no single campaign has enough data to show what's working.

How we rebuilt it

We replaced all of it with two campaigns.

The first sends people to Chuck's website, and a lead counts when they ask for a quote there. Someone who leaves Facebook, looks around the site and fills in a form is usually serious. This campaign gets most of the budget.

The second uses Meta's instant forms, which are quicker to fill in. That reaches people who won't click through to a website. We put a cost cap on it so Meta can't pay more than we want for each form.

Both campaigns are split between the Upstate and the Asheville area. Each area gets its own copy, and the first line names the area so people can see it's a local company.

What the ads say

We built the ads around what makes Chuck's easy to buy from. The estimate is free and it happens at home. They bring the samples, so you see the floor in your own light, next to your own furniture. You don't have to spend a Saturday driving between showrooms. And every ad mentions the 5.0 rating from 130+ reviews.

We also put a monthly price in front of people: waterproof luxury vinyl plank, installed, for $0 down and about $48 a month, or no payments for 12 months, with approved financing.

The financing ads did best. Most people have no idea what new floors cost, and a monthly number gives them something they can say yes to before anyone comes out to measure.

The website campaign runs on single images. The instant form campaign mixes images with short videos for people whose carpet is stained or whose floors are worn out.

The result

From October 8 to 18, our two campaigns brought in 91 leads, 70 from the website and 21 from instant forms.

Cost per lead was 40% lower than the ads that were running in the three weeks before. Website leads came in about 48% cheaper than before, and about 40% cheaper than our own instant form leads.

We've left their ad spend and cost per lead out.

What happens next

We're tracking which of these leads turn into booked estimates. That will tell us how to split the budget between the website and the instant forms.

New ads go into these same two campaigns. That keeps the account easy to read, and each campaign keeps what it has learned.