How To Run Facebook Ads For A Local Business 5 Essential Tips

It's important to understand that running ads nationally or internationally is very different from running ads locally.

And if you try to run ads the same way, then your ads won’t work how you might expect or completely fail.

This article will give you the confidence to make sure you get the best ROI if you’re a local business or an agency running ads for a local business with these 5 essential tips:

1. Use broad interests - Don’t use specific interests.
2. Run Ad Sets with open targeting.
3. Run Consistently Create Fresh Ads and Creative.
4. use specific language in your copy.
5. Word of mouth or reviews.

#1 Use Broad Interests - Don’t Use Specific Interests

When you target locally the audience size will shrink compared to national or international.

This limits your ad reach to a certain number of people.

And if you start getting too specific it’s gonna start shrinking your audience even more.

Example:
Letys say a local fishing shop targets people within a 10 mile radius using specific targeting interests
such as...

Hooks for fishing rods, or fishing rods, fishing lures or even carp fishing, yhis will limit the audience size to a smaller group of people.

Instead, if they used a broad interest targeting such as, just Fishing this will open the audience to a wider net.

Giving them more opportunities in their local area targeting people for that industry, or if it’s a local restaurant you can open to broad targeting such as restaurants.

#2 Run Ad Sets with open targeting

Instead of using any interests, age range, or genders, you can leave the targeting completely open.

And this includes leaving the placements wide open.

Because not only will this bring your cost per mile down, but will allow Facebook's AI to do the work and let them find the most ideal prospect for your ads.

At the end of the day, Facebook is more than likely going to be better at targeting than we are so let their AI do the work.

So next time you run different ad sets you can have different interest groups.

However, allow one of those ad sets to be a wide-open net with open targeting.

This will ensure you’re utilizing Facebooks algorithm to find the best audience for your local business.

#3 Run Consistently Create Fresh Ads and Creative

Since you're targeting locally, your audience is much smaller than it would be nationally or internationally, and Facebook will burn through the audience a lot faster.

And when it starts burning through your audience you’ll experience faster ad fatigue that will burn out and will need changing more consistently.

So what you want to do is to make sure you’re keeping things fresh with new creative, running different ads with different angles and hooks.

Example:
Let’s say your audience size is around 100,000 and the message of your ad has fatigued.

You may have thousands of leads or purchases, which still opens you to another 99,000 people.

So changing the angle and hooks will target another thousand leads or purchases from that.

Example:
If a furniture shop was trying to sell an office desk they could angle the desk to local business to supply new desks for their employees.

Then the next angle could be selling the same desks but to home office conversions or even to home-school parents that are trying to make a home setup.

This will keep things consistent and fresh.

#4 use specific language in your copy

Usually when I target big audiences nationally or internationally I like to be very broad with my copy language.

But since you’re targeting locally you can call out more of a specific audience that will connect a lot easier.

Such as say a new restaurant opens up in a city near where I live in Sheffield and the copy in the ad called out people in my area.

This will have a higher chance to grab my attention and for me to take an action.

Or let’s say a local Bakery opens in the area and states a certain time you can get the bread fresh out of the oven with only a few minutes drive away.

This will create an opportunity of bringing in people who live around the area.

#5 Word of mouth or reviews

When it comes to local areas, word of mouth can be very powerful.

In the case of national or international targeting it’s not how you might expect because testimonials are not the greatest proof to use, but locally has a lot of weight behind it.

Example:
I had a tyre that needed changing and I was told by a friend about a guy who’ll do it cheaper than most and provide a good service which was exactly what I got.

Because in local communities people are more likely to favour what others say around the area.

So you can put your reviews or even a video of the locals talking about your place that will bring attention and new leads or sales.

So if you implement as many of these tips today you should see a big improvement in your local ads.