Paid ads · St. John's

Instagram ads that fill your booking calendar

A salon, spa, pilates studio, or fitness studio sells a time slot. If Tuesday at 2 p.m. is empty, that hour does not come back. Instagram and Facebook ads are one way to show a single service to people in St. John's, Mount Pearl, and Paradise, including people who do not already follow you.

Jellybean Row Marketing manages Facebook, Instagram, and Google ads from St. John's. This note stays with Instagram and Facebook, for businesses that live by the booking calendar. It does not promise a full book. What happens depends on the offer, the ad, the amount you choose to pay Meta, and whether you can take the appointment.

Give the ad somewhere to land

The tap has to open a next step someone can finish on a phone. That is usually your booking page. It can also be a message you will answer the same day.

In Meta Ads Manager, the Traffic objective is for sending people to a destination such as a website. When that destination is a website, Meta lists Book now among the call-to-action buttons. Use it when the tap opens the page where a time is chosen. A homepage that makes someone hunt for the service wastes the tap.

If bookings already run through software, Meta publishes a list of third-party providers that can take appointments from a Facebook Page. Connecting a professional Instagram account to that Page is how Meta says you run ads on both, and how appointment booking buttons become available. The appointments page also says certain features of Meta's own Appointments tool were set to start going away in mid-July 2024, so check it before you rely on an old button.

Match the objective to a booking

Ads Manager asks for one of six objectives: Awareness, Traffic, Engagement, Leads, App promotion, and Sales. Meta's guide ties each one to a business goal.

Traffic is the one to use when the tap should open a booking page. Leads is the objective Meta describes as collecting leads, which fits when you want a name and a way to reach the person instead. Engagement includes getting more messages, which fits a studio that books in Instagram or Facebook messages and replies as it would answer the phone.

Awareness is for people most likely to remember the ad. Meta points to it when a business is new or has just changed its name, not when you need this week's chairs or class spots filled.

Those objectives can run on Instagram. Meta's Instagram objectives page lists Traffic, Engagement, and Leads, among others, with placements that include Feed, Stories, and Reels. You need a professional Instagram account connected to your Page.

Name the towns you can actually serve

Location is set on the ad set, under Audience. Meta lets you enter cities, regions, and countries, and reach people who live there, who recently visited, or who often visit. A studio that can take clients from St. John's, Mount Pearl, and Paradise can enter those cities. If you only work in one of them, enter that one. How to choose locations is Meta's own page for this control.

Meta says it will not deliver beyond the locations you set unless you select "Reach more people likely to respond to your ads." Leave that off when you only want the towns on the list. A tap from someone who will not make the trip is not a booking.

Detailed targeting can add interests, behaviours, and demographics. Meta is consolidating some interest options, so do not hang the plan on one narrow interest. The towns you can serve matter more.

Show your room and one service

Use a photo or a short clip from your own place. The chair, the treatment room, the studio floor, the person who does the work. Name the service the way you say it at the desk, and name the town the business is in. If Fridays are already full, do not advertise Fridays.

Say what can be booked, and what the tap does. The page it opens has to work on a phone, because that is where the ad is seen.

Answer the messages. A tap holds nothing until a time is confirmed. Ordinary posts are covered in our social media notes. The ad budget is paid to Meta.

Pause when you cannot take the work

Turn the ad off when the calendar cannot absorb it. A full week, someone away, or a class with a cap are reasons to pause. Before you change the picture, check three things: the cities, the button, and the page it opens. If someone in Paradise taps and lands on a St. John's address they were not told about, fix the ad or the page.

If you want the campaigns set up and looked after, ask for a quote. Tell us the service, the towns you can serve, and how people book today. Tyler will reply. The amount spent on the ads is paid to Meta. Management is quoted separately.