How to stop getting so many out of area leads

Updated
August 27, 2025

Video Embed

Video Transcript

If you clicked on this video, you're probably wondering how to target your ideal customers on Meta. And maybe you're running Meta ads but you keep getting leads from outside of your service area and you're wondering what, if anything, can be done about that. In either case, this video is for you. I'm gonna break down exactly how targeting works on Meta so you can get more of your ideal leads and get them more within your service area.

Let's dive in. Facebook gives you a variety of options for location targeting. So you can target by zip code, you can drop pins and target radiuses around those pins, Or you can target by other types of regions like towns, counties, states, etcetera. For a home service business like HVAC, you want to target at least somewhere between one hundred thousand to five hundred thousand people on Facebook.

One big mistake that a lot of contractors make with their targeting is going too narrow. So they'll target women only over the age of thirty five, married, that have kids, that live within the top you know ten percent of income zip codes, and so on and so on. Being narrow with your targeting can help in some really specific situations if you already have really strong ad copy and an offer that's working really well. However, what we found is that most of the time when you do that you just pigeonhole yourself and you make your audience size way too small.

In that case, all you accomplish is making your lead cost way higher than it needs to be while not necessarily getting a better quality of lead. Facebook wants to show ads to people who are relevant for those ads. So if they see that your ad is about an HVAC replacement, they're going to try to show that ad to people who are most likely to be interested in an HVAC replacement. So, what I recommend is leaving your targeting wide open and just targeting people over the age of thirty.

Now, what you can do with Facebook's advantage detail targeting is make suggestions so you can suggest that you want to target people who are married or target people who have kids while at the same time giving the algorithm leeway to go outside those targeting parameters if it thinks it'll get you more leads. So here's why this usually happens. So let's say your ads targeted a small area around Lancaster, Pennsylvania. So you might have people that work in Lancaster but they live over in York.

And so what's happening is during the day they're within that targeting zone of your ads, they come across it on Facebook and they respond to it even though they truly live outside of your service area. That's why sometimes you'll have a spike of leads that are outside the service area during times when people travel like holidays or vacations. Because Meta's system of targeting is never going to be perfect, you'll have to work around it. The first way you can do that is by calling out specific areas at the beginning of your ad.

So you could say something like, hey, Lancaster homeowners or for homeowners who live in Lancaster. That helps the algorithm get your ad in front of the right people and it helps people who don't live in Lancaster know that it doesn't really pertain to them. The next thing you can do is add a qualifying question to your lead forms to ask if they live within a certain mile radius of Lancaster. If they answer no, I don't live within five or ten miles of Lancaster, then Facebook can automatically disqualify that lead for you.

Another thing that we've seen work really well for targeting is using micro campaigns versus targeting a big geographical area all at once. So rather than one big campaign that targets all around Lancaster, you break it out into smaller campaigns that target Eden or Roseville or some other smaller towns within the area. So you would specifically call out Eden for example in the ad and then in the lead form you would ask if they live within five miles of Eden. And then you would copy and paste that maybe ten different times for all the different towns that you would want to target.

In our experience, that does a much better job of getting those local leads and in some cases even makes the leads better quality. That's all I got. If you learned something from this video, like, comment, and subscribe and I'll see you in the next one.

Resources Mentioned

  • N/A

Related Videos

No items found.

Frequently Asked Questions

What makes Service Allies different from other HVAC Facebook ads companies?

What makes us different from other Facebook ads companies is the pains we take to make the leads good quality. This includes the way ads are written, images that are used, the video ads we create, qualifying questions we ask in the lead form, and getting feedback from you to know which campaigns are getting the best quality leads.

How will we get notified when new leads come in?

You can get notified by text, email, app notification, or any combination of the three.

Is there a contract?

There’s no long term commitment with Service Allies. It’s a month to month agreement!

How do people see the ads?

Local homeowners see the ads depending on where we tell Facebook to target. We can use zip codes, or multiple targeting radiuses, to show ads in the areas you want. Homeowners who are on Facebook or Instagram in those areas see your sponsored ad as they scroll.

How many leads can we generate?

It depends on 1) how low we can get your cost per lead and 2) your monthly ad spend budget. Lead costs typically fall between $25 and $75 per lead. If you spend $5000 per month on ads, that would mean between 200 and 66 leads. The more populated your service area is, the higher the scaling potential.

How much do you charge?

You will have two separate costs. The first cost is ad spend, which Facebook will bill you directly for. I typically recommend a monthly budget of $1000 - $2000 to start. Since the average lead cost is $50 in ad spend per lead, this should get you roughly between 20-40 leads monthly. If you need more or less, we can adjust advertising spend as you need. The second cost is our agency fees, which are only available on a live demo call.

How good are the leads?

Normally, between 20% and 40% can normally be booked for sales appointments. This requires that you follow up with the leads consistently, and have a good process for getting them scheduled.

How long does it take to start working?

When a new client signs up, we start with an onboarding call, and launch 7 days later. Over the past 5 years I’ve run this lead generation program, I’ve never seen it take longer than 2-3 days after launch to start getting leads.

How many people are you working with in my market?

We only serve one contractor in a local market. Even if you are part of a large metro area, we’ll single out an exclusive zone just for you. We still have a relatively small client base at the time of writing, so there is a good chance your market is still available. However, the sooner you reach out the better.

How many contractors are going to get the leads?

Just you. Facebook ads will be shown under your business name, and all the generated leads will be exclusively yours.

What if I'm not on Facebook or don't have a business page?

No problem. It's fairly simple to set up a Facebook business page, so we can do this for you at no extra charge. Also, don't worry if your current Facebook page doesn't have many likes. It doesn't seem to affect the volume or quality of leads at all.

How do you get the leads?

We get leads by running ads on Facebook. Ads are like Facebook posts, except you pay Facebook to show your ad to a specific local area and demographic. If you currently don’t use Facebook, or don’t have a Facebook page, that is no problem. We’ll set up a page on your behalf to run ads from.