Think you need to spend $1,500 a month to run Facebook ads for your local business? You don't.

In this episode, I break down what I actually recommend local business owners spend on Meta ads, what to realistically expect when you start small, and why $5 to $10 a day might be the best marketing move you make this year.

Your audience is local so it's smaller. That means a small budget reaches a real chunk of the people you want to reach. Organic posts might reach a couple hundred people. A $5 a day ad can reach a couple thousand people in your target market.

In this episode, we cover:

• Where the "big budget" myth comes from and when hiring an ad agency actually makes sense
• My go-to starting budget for local ads (and why $1 a day still beats $0)
• How to use your goal cost per acquisition to know how long to run ads before deciding whether they're working
• Why ads aren't gambling when you have a strategy: you're either learning or earning
• Real client stories, including a physical therapist who got a new client the day after launching an $8/day ad
• What mailers, vendor booths, and print ads cost you compared to ads you can actually track
• Why staying invisible costs 10 times more than a $300/month ad budget

If you've been wondering how much to spend on Facebook ads or you've been stuck deciding where to start, this one's for you. Starting small is still starting and the audience you build now makes sales easier down the road.

Ready to learn how to run your own ads?

Join Hometown ADvantage, my marketing membership for local small businesses. You get local-specific ad strategies, weekly expert feedback on your ads and fresh ad ideas and prompts every month all for $99/month.

Join Hometown ADvantage: https://www.nicoleeldridgemedia.com/hometown?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio