Spent $4,300 on ads in 6 weeks for my lawn care biz in Toledo, and I can't tell if it saved me or killed me
Started running ads for my lawn care business back in April, first time ever paying for leads instead of just relying on word of mouth around Toledo. Dropped $4,300 over 6 weeks across two platforms and pulled in 11 new mowing clients, but here's where I'm stuck on which side is right. My brother says $390 per client is insane when I used to get referrals for free, and that I should've just printed 500 door hangers for $180 instead. My neighbor who runs a pool company says that math is wrong because those 11 clients stay 2 or 3 seasons, so real cost per client is way lower. I genuinely can't decide if I got scammed by the ad game or if I'm just not seeing the long term yet. Anybody else run paid ads for a service business and actually do the math on season 2 and 3 before calling it a win or a loss?
My cousin ran a car wash down in Dayton and did the same thing with facebook ads a few years back. He swore up and down the first month was a bust, then a year later half his regulars were people who came in off those ads and never left. The thing he figured out was that the ad money isn't really buying you a client that one time, it's buying you a shot at a repeat customer you never would've met otherwise. Door hangers sit in a drawer or hit the trash, at least with ads you know somebody actually saw it and clicked. If those 11 stick around even two seasons the math starts looking a lot friendlier, but if they bounce after one summer then your brother's got a point about that 390 number being rough.