Facebook and Instagram ads for home service companies

What social ads are good for

Search ads catch people who already have a problem: the AC stopped, the roof leaks. Facebook and Instagram ads reach people before they search. That makes them weaker for emergencies and stronger for planned work: maintenance plans, seasonal tune-ups, inspections, upgrades, cleaning packages and add-on services. The job of a social ad is to make a homeowner think, 'I should get that done before summer', and book while the thought is fresh.

Reach is not the problem. In Pew Research Center's 2026 survey, 84% of US adults said they ever use YouTube, 70% Facebook and 51% Instagram^[1]. The challenge is getting people who are scrolling past friends' photos to stop for a service company, and then following up before they forget.

Offers that tend to work

Homeowners plan maintenance. In Angi's survey, regular maintenance was the top planned home project, at 32%, ahead of interior painting at 20%^[2], and 44% of surveyed homeowners completed at least one maintenance project in 2025^[4]. Offers that turn that intention into an appointment perform better than generic brand ads.

• HVAC: pre-season AC or furnace tune-up, filter and safety check, maintenance plan enrollment.
• Electrical: panel safety inspection, whole-home surge protection check, EV charger readiness visit.
• Roofing and gutters: free roof inspection after a storm, gutter cleaning before autumn.
• Cleaning: first deep clean, move-out clean, spring cleaning package.
• Pest and lawn: first-treatment offer, mosquito season program, lawn assessment.
• Handyman: honey-do list visit, TV mounting or smart device install bundle.

Choose the right campaign setup

Lead forms are cheap to fill, which cuts both ways. Use the setting that adds a review step before submission, and add one or two qualifying questions, such as ZIP code and type of system or home size. Fewer, better leads usually cost less per booked job.

Targeting and retargeting

• Location: target the ZIP codes or radius you serve, and check the location options so ads reach people in the area rather than everyone who has shown interest in it.
• Broad audiences often work well with a good offer; let the creative and the form questions do the filtering.
• Retargeting: show reminders to people who visited your website or engaged with your page in the last 30 to 90 days.
• Customer lists: upload past customers to exclude them from first-time offers, or to target them with maintenance plan renewals, if your privacy notice covers it.
• Exclusions: exclude current plan members from plan sign-up ads.

Privacy rules apply to tracking pixels and customer lists. The California Consumer Privacy Act covers for-profit businesses with gross annual revenue over $25 million, or that buy, sell or share personal information of 100,000 or more California residents or households, among other tests^[5]. Businesses that sell personal information must give California consumers a clear 'Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information' link^[6]. Check with your adviser whether these apply, and keep your privacy notice accurate either way.

Creative that stops the scroll

1. Use real people: your technicians, trucks and jobs. Short phone videos often beat polished stock footage.
2. Show the problem and the result: a clogged filter, a clean coil, a cleared gutter.
3. Put the offer in the first line and on the image.
4. Keep text short; say who it is for, what they get and how to book.
5. Make fresh versions every few weeks, because the same audience tires of one ad.
6. Label any staged or sample images as examples.

Follow up before the lead goes cold

Social leads are less urgent than search leads, so speed matters even more. Research on web leads found that firms trying to contact leads within an hour were nearly seven times as likely to qualify them^[3]. In the same audit, 23% of companies never responded to web leads at all^[7].

1. 01

   Get leads out of Meta instantly

   Connect lead forms to your CRM or email so a person sees each lead the moment it arrives, rather than downloading a file at the end of the week.

2. 02

   Call within minutes

   Call first during business hours. Say who you are and reference the offer they asked about.

3. 03

   Text if there is no answer

   Send a short text with your name, company and a booking link or a time to call back.

4. 04

   Try again

   Follow up again later the same day and the next day, then stop.

5. 05

   Record the outcome

   Mark each lead booked, not interested, unreachable or bad data, so you can judge the campaign on bookings.

A call script for social leads

Social leads often forget they filled in a form, so the first ten seconds decide the call. Keep it friendly and specific:

1. Hi, this is your name from your company. You asked about our spring AC tune-up on Facebook a few minutes ago. Is now a good time?
2. Confirm the basics: the address or ZIP code, and the system or service they asked about.
3. Offer two specific appointment times rather than asking when suits them.
4. Explain what the visit includes and any charge, in one or two sentences.
5. Confirm by text with the date, time window and technician name.
6. If they are not ready, ask if you can text them a reminder before the offer ends.

Write down any objection you hear more than twice. It usually belongs in the ad or the form, so the next lead arrives with that question already answered.

A simple testing plan

Social platforms reward steady testing more than big launches. Start with one offer, one audience and two or three creative versions, and run them long enough to see bookings, not just clicks, usually two to four weeks. Then change one thing at a time: the image or video, the first line, the form questions or the offer itself. Pause anything that brings leads you cannot reach or that never book, even if its cost per lead looks low. When an offer works, plan it into your seasonal calendar so it runs again next year at the right moment.

Example: an HVAC tune-up campaign

Example (fictional): an HVAC company runs a spring AC tune-up offer on Facebook and Instagram using instant forms with a review step and two questions: ZIP code and system age. The ad shows a technician cleaning a condenser, with the offer and the booking deadline in the first line.

Example: over four weeks, the campaign brings 180 leads. Leads called within ten minutes book at more than twice the rate of leads called the next day. Twelve tune-ups find failing parts that turn into repairs, and three lead to system replacement quotes. The owner keeps the campaign for autumn furnace tune-ups and adds retargeting for website visitors who did not book.

Measuring what matters

• Cost per lead is only the first number; track cost per booked job and revenue per lead.
• Track contact rate: what share of leads you reached by phone.
• Track follow-on revenue from tune-ups and inspections, which is where social offers often pay off.
• Compare with search channels using the same measures; see Google Search Ads setup and Nextdoor marketing.

Households are spending on their homes: US households spent an average of $12,472 on home projects in 2025, up from $12,050 in 2024, according to Angi^[8]. Social ads are one way to make sure some of that planned spending lands with you.