Short answer (TL;DR)
Facebook still reaches close to half the adult population in most developed markets, and Instagram keeps growing while Facebook slowly shrinks (DataReportal, Digital 2026, November 2025). The global average cost per thousand impressions (CPM) on Meta is now $14.19. For a contractor working a 20 mile radius around the shop, a sensible starting budget is $500 to $800 per month. The campaigns that produce actual phone numbers are the ones with a "leads" or "messages" objective, not the "Boost post" button. Since January 2026 Meta offers EU users a less personalized ad option, which makes server-side measurement through the Conversions API and your own customer list more important than it was last year.
How many people Facebook and Instagram actually reach
Meta reports advertising reach per market, and the year-over-year direction is the same almost everywhere. Here is what DataReportal recorded in one tracked market (October 2025), which shows the pattern cleanly:
| Platform | Ad reach | Share of population | Change in one year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 999,000 | 47.2 % | -20,900 (-2.0 %) | |
| 719,000 | 34.0 % | +32,200 (+4.7 %) | |
| All social platforms | 1,570,000 | 74.2 % | -10,000 (-0.6 %) |
Two lines, one conclusion for a trades business. Facebook is slipping slightly but still covers roughly half the adult population, and its age profile is the one that buys bathrooms, roofs, and replacement windows. Instagram is growing and is the logical channel for work that photographs well: cabinetry, tile, auto body, landscaping, hair. Most small contractors do not need separate campaigns for each. Meta serves both platforms from the same account and the same budget.
What a Meta ad costs in 2026
CPM varies a lot by market, and cheaper markets still exist. Here is the 2026 spread across several European markets (Lebesgue), which shows how wide the range is:
| Market | CPM 2026 (USD) |
|---|---|
| Slovenia | 5.15 |
| Hungary | 5.24 |
| Croatia | 5.39 |
| Italy | 6.06 |
| Austria | 8.63 |
| Germany | 9.05 |
The global picture is the one to plan around. Average Meta CPM rose from $11.82 in 2025 to $14.19 in 2026, an increase of 20.1 percent. Competition for the same audience is what drives that number, so a low-competition trade in a smaller metro pays less than a saturated one in a major market. Your own account data beats any benchmark once you have four weeks of it.
Run the math on a budget: at a $14.19 CPM, $600 a month buys roughly 42,000 impressions. At a typical click-through rate between 0.9 and 1.5 percent, that is about 380 to 630 clicks per month. How many of those turn into leads depends on your offer and your landing page, not on Meta.
Which campaign type works for a contractor
The "Boost post" button spends money on likes. Three objectives actually produce contacts.
Lead campaigns (lead ads) open a form inside Facebook. The user never leaves the app, and name and phone number fill in automatically. Meta reports a 10 percent lower cost per qualified lead on Advantage+ lead campaigns. If you connect the form to your CRM using the "conversion leads" objective, Meta's tests showed a 15 percent lower cost per quality lead and a 44 percent higher share of leads that turned out to be serious.
Message campaigns push the conversation into Messenger or WhatsApp. These suit jobs where the customer sends a photo first: a cracked windshield, a leak, a damaged floor.
Call campaigns are the shortest path for urgent work. A plumber at 10 p.m. does not need a form.
What changed with Advantage+ in 2026
Meta made Advantage+ the default recommendation in 2026 instead of manual targeting. Two changes matter for small advertisers. The learning threshold dropped, so campaigns with a low number of conversions can now work at all. The learning phase finishes roughly 30 percent faster than on manual campaigns, which means days instead of weeks. The practical takeaway: stop guessing at interests and age ranges. Give the algorithm a well defined service area, one clear conversion goal, and three to five different creatives.
What the new privacy rules mean
In April 2025 the European Commission fined Meta 200 million euros for failing to offer users an equivalent service with less personal data. Meta responded with a new choice for EU users, rolled out in January 2026: either full ad personalization or a lower-data version with more limited targeting. In December 2025 the Commission called the proposal a good step.
This is not the end of Meta ads, and it is not only a European story. Signal loss from privacy controls and browser restrictions affects every advertiser. Three moves cancel most of it out:
1. Set up the Conversions API so website conversions are sent to Meta from your server, not only from the browser. 2. Collect customer phone numbers and email addresses into your own list, because that list is the basis for lookalike audiences. 3. Measure outside Meta too. Asking "how did you hear about us" on the first phone call is still the cheapest attribution model there is.
What monthly budget makes sense
The floor depends on the size of your service area and the value of a job. At $300 a month you reach too few people for the algorithm to find a pattern at all. At $500 to $800 a month in one metro area you get enough data to optimize within three to four weeks.
| Monthly budget | Realistic area | Expected impressions | Who it fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| $500 | one town, 15 mile radius | about 35,000 | salon, auto shop, small workshop |
| $800 | metro area, 25 mile radius | about 56,000 | cabinetmaker, tile setter, window installer |
| $1,500 | two metro areas | about 105,000 | general contractor, supplier with a showroom |
Impression estimates assume a $14.19 CPM. Ad spend is not the whole cost. Budget another $300 to $600 a month for photo and video production and campaign management if you are not doing it yourself.
What convinces a local customer in an ad
Stock photos do not work. Shots from your own job site do: before and after, the face of the person doing the work, and a price.
Video shot on a phone often beats a professional production, because it looks like content instead of an ad. The first two seconds have to show the result.
A price in the ad filters your leads. "Kitchen installation from $500" brings fewer clicks and more booked jobs than "free quote."
A specific location builds trust. "We work in Bergen County and the surrounding towns" beats "serving the entire country," if Bergen County is where you actually work.
Three mistakes that eat the budget
The first is advertising without a landing page. A click that lands on your homepage converts less often than a click that lands on a page covering one service, with a gallery of completed work and a form above the fold.
The second is killing the campaign after three days. The algorithm has not finished the learning phase by then, so the data tells you nothing. Four weeks is the minimum before you judge it.
The third is running ads from a personal profile instead of a business account. Without a business account and a properly installed Meta Pixel you have no measurement, and without measurement advertising becomes a cost with no number next to it.
Remarketing is the cheapest line on the invoice
Someone who visited your site and did not fill in the form is worth more than a stranger. The Meta Pixel records them, and a remarketing campaign reaches them again over the next 30 days. Cost per click is similar for both audiences; close rates are not. A contractor with low website traffic will have a small remarketing audience, so that campaign only needs 15 to 20 percent of the budget. The rest goes to finding new visitors.
The other cheap audience is lookalikes. Upload a list of past customers' phone numbers and Meta finds people who behave similarly. You need at least 500 contacts for a usable result. Below that, target geographically only and let the algorithm find the pattern on its own.
When Meta ads are the wrong choice
Meta creates demand among people who are not searching for anything at that moment. That makes it a poor fit for emergency work, where the customer opens Google and calls the first number. Plumber during a flood, locksmith at a locked door, towing: that budget belongs in Google Ads and Google Business Profile, not Instagram.
Meta pays off when you have a visually convincing result, a decision cycle measured in weeks, and an average job value above roughly $600. Custom kitchens, bathroom remodels, shades and blinds, pools, landscaping. On those jobs the customer spends a month collecting ideas, and your ad shows up right in the middle of that collecting.
How to tell whether it pays
One number decides everything: cost per acquired customer against gross profit per job. If a cabinetmaker spends $800 a month, gets 20 leads and closes three jobs at $3,000 each, the cost per customer is $267 against $9,000 in revenue. If the same budget produces 40 leads and zero closed jobs, the problem is not Meta, it is the offer or the response time.
Response time decides trades leads. Whoever calls within an hour wins the job over whoever calls three days later. Meta can deliver the contact. You have to pick up the phone.
Want this set up for your business? [Talk to NovusAgency](https://novusagency.co/en/contact).