SEO builds your engine. Meta ads turn it on the same day. We design the graphics, target the audience, and run Facebook and Instagram campaigns aimed at the exact homeowners in Rockford, Loves Park, Machesney Park, and Belvidere who need what you do, right now.
$497 setup, creative included. $147 a month flat under $1k ad spend, 15% above. You keep the ad account. No long contracts.
Every Rockford service business owner we talk to has the same story. They opened the Facebook app, saw the blue "Boost" button under one of their posts, threw $20 at it, and watched the post get a thousand impressions and exactly zero phone calls. They concluded that Facebook ads do not work. That is the wrong conclusion.
The Boost button is not Facebook ads. It is the worst, dumbest, most expensive version of Facebook ads, designed to make Meta money without making you any. Real Meta ads are built in Ads Manager, with a campaign objective ("get me leads"), an audience that is not just "people who like my page," creative built to interrupt a scroll, and tracking that tells you which ad produced which call.
The other reason most Rockford contractors swear off Meta ads is they hired a kid who promised the moon, charged $1,500 a month, ran one campaign for two weeks, generated 40 leads who were all out-of-state and asking about prices, then disappeared. That happens because the kid never installed conversion tracking, never built a Rockford-only audience, and used generic stock photos that screamed "agency template."
We do not run that playbook. We run the one that produces booked jobs in your service area.
Meta ads are the fastest channel we run, by a wide margin. You will not wait six months like you do with SEO. But you also will not get a flood of perfect leads on day one. Here is the realistic shape of what happens.
Week 1. Setup. We audit your account, install tracking, build your audience, design three to five creative variations, write the ad copy, and launch the first campaign. Ads go live by day five or six.
Week 2. Learning phase. Meta runs your ads to a wide slice of your audience to figure out who responds. First leads usually come within 48 to 72 hours of launch. Cost per lead is high in week one and drops as the algorithm learns.
Weeks 3 to 4. Winners emerge. One or two creatives will outperform the rest by a wide margin. We kill the losers, double down on the winners, and design two new variations to test against the leader. Cost per lead drops 30 to 50 percent from week one.
Month 2 onward. Steady state. We refresh creative every two to three weeks to fight ad fatigue, expand the audience as we scale spend, and report on cost per booked job (not just cost per lead). At this point most Rockford clients are seeing predictable lead flow week over week and can decide whether to scale spend or hold steady.
If two weeks pass with no leads at all, the offer or the audience is broken. We do not burn your budget pretending otherwise. We will tell you, pause the campaign, and rework the strategy.
Most Rockford service businesses start at $500 to $750 a month in ad spend, paid directly to Meta. That is enough budget to run two or three creative variations, gather real data in two weeks, and book a steady trickle of leads. We do not require a minimum, but anything under $300 a month is hard to optimize because Meta needs roughly 50 conversions per week per ad set to learn properly. If you want to start small, start at $500 and scale once a winning creative is found.
Three things. First, an audit of your existing ad account (if any) plus a clean install of Meta Pixel and the Conversions API so we can actually track which ads produce calls and form fills, not just clicks. Second, your audience build, hyper-targeted to homeowners in Rockford, Loves Park, Machesney Park, Belvidere, and the surrounding service areas you choose. Third, the initial round of ad creative we design in-house, three to five static graphics or short carousels in your brand colors, with the hooks and angles we know convert for Rockford service trades. You do not need to provide your own graphics or hire a designer.
If your monthly ad spend with Meta is under $1,000, you pay us a flat $147 a month for management, no matter how many campaigns we are running. Once your ad spend crosses $1,000 a month, our fee becomes 15% of that ad spend, billed monthly. That keeps the model simple for small spenders and scales fairly as you grow. Ad spend itself is paid directly by you to Meta, on your own card, so you keep full control of the account.
No. We design every ad in-house as part of the $497 setup and ongoing monthly management. If you have photos of recent jobs, your truck, your team, before-and-after shots, those will outperform stock every time and we will use them first. If you do not have a photo library yet, we work with brand-aligned graphics, on-screen text, and stock that does not look like stock. You never have to crank out creative yourself.
Not for every campaign. Meta lead forms let people fill out their name, phone, and service request without leaving Facebook or Instagram, which often outperforms sending traffic to a website. But for higher-ticket services (roofing, HVAC system replacement, kitchen remodels) a real landing page usually converts better because visitors want to see proof. We will tell you honestly whether your service needs a landing page or whether lead forms are enough.
Most clients see their first lead within 48 to 72 hours of campaign launch. The first two weeks are learning mode, where Meta tests the creative against your audience and figures out who clicks. By week three or four we have a winning creative and a cost-per-lead number we can scale against. If two weeks pass with zero leads, something is wrong with the offer or the audience and we kill the campaign rather than burn your budget.
You do. We work inside your Business Manager account using a partner connection, not a personal one. If you ever leave us, you keep the account, the Pixel data, the audiences we built, and all the creative we designed for you. We do not believe in holding clients hostage. Most of our clients have stayed because the results are there, not because the exit is hard.
Free Meta ads audit. We review your current ad account (or set one up), tell you what your competitors in Rockford are running right now, and show you exactly what a working campaign looks like for your trade. You leave the call with a written punch list whether you hire us or not.
Lead Development Co runs Facebook and Instagram ads for trades, contractors, and service businesses in Rockford, Loves Park, Machesney Park, Belvidere, Roscoe, and Rockton. We design the creative, target the audience, and book real jobs.
