Facebook ads for tradies, explained straight.

Do Facebook ads work for tradies?

They can, when the job suits them. Facebook and Instagram can show your ads to people in your service area while they scroll, including people who aren’t searching for your service yet. That suits work people can picture and plan for, and jobs worth enough to cover the cost of finding the customer. Usually a good fit:

• Work that looks good in before-and-after photos, such as cleaning, landscaping, painting, roofing and renovations
• Residential customers in a defined local area
• Jobs people plan a few days or weeks ahead
• Businesses that can answer or call back quickly

Harder to make work: true emergencies, where people search and call within minutes, and very low-value one-off jobs. If Meta ads aren’t right for your business, we’ll tell you before you spend anything.

What Facebook ads cost a tradie

There are two separate costs. Keep them apart when you compare quotes.

• Ad spend: paid straight to Meta from your own ad account. We suggest starting at $500–$1,000 a month, and because the account is in your name, the budget stays under your control.
• Management: what you pay someone to plan, build and run the ads. At Veltrayo that’s a $490 fixed start fee, then a monthly retainer based on the leads we bring in, agreed in writing before we start.

We’re not registered for GST, so no GST is added to our fees. Your ad accounts, history and audiences stay with you.

What makes a tradie ad work

Start with a clear offer, real photos and a way to measure enquiries.

• Real photos of your own jobs, not stock images.
• One clear offer, said simply, so people know why to pick you.
• Targeting by the suburbs or radius you actually service.
• An easy next step: tap to call or a short enquiry form.
• Conversion tracking, so you can see which ads are bringing in enquiries.

Leads are only worth something if you answer

Ads can bring in enquiries, but the job is won in the follow-up. In AIIMS Group’s analysis of 207,000+ inbound calls to 858 of its client businesses across nine industries, 9.2% went unanswered. For roofing businesses it was 17.6%.

Source: AIIMS Group, Australian SME Lead Response Report, reported by Dynamic Business, 28 August 2026. (opens in a new tab)

That’s why we built the AI Receptionist: when you can’t pick up, the caller hears a greeting with your business name and can leave a voicemail, callers on a mobile get a text back from your business, and you get an alert with their details. Landlines and private numbers can’t be texted, so you get an alert for those instead.

How the AI Receptionist works

How we run Facebook ads for tradies

1. A free first chat about your business, your area and the jobs you want more of.
2. A written proposal with the scope and price. Nothing starts until you agree.
3. We set up your ad accounts in your name, with conversion tracking for real enquiries.
4. We plan the audience, write the ads and launch the campaigns.
5. We test, shift budget to what works, and refresh the ads as results come in.
6. Every month you see the enquiries, calls and spend, what we changed and why.

More on our Meta ads management