What $20,000 in Facebook Ad Spend Taught Us About Small Business Advertising in 2025

By Brayden Pauls, Co-Founder at Acquirely | April 2026 | 8 min read

Brayden Pauls is the co-founder of Acquirely, a Meta ads agency that has helped Canadian small businesses generate over $400,000 in revenue through Facebook and Instagram advertising. He has been running and managing paid social campaigns since 2022 across home services, real estate, and digital products.

Most people think running Facebook ads for a small business is simple. You pick an audience, write some copy, upload a photo, and wait for customers to come in. That is not entirely how it works.

In 2025, we spent over $20,000 managing Facebook and Instagram ads for small businesses across Canada. That money helped generate over $400,000 in revenue for our clients, but it also taught us things that no course, blog post, or YouTube video could have.

This is what we actually learned. The good, the bad, and the parts most marketing agencies will not tell you.

Facebook ads for small businesses are not a vending machine

Do Facebook ads work for small businesses? Yes, but not in the way most people expect.

Facebook ads work by building awareness and interest over time, not by producing instant sales. Most people who see your ad will not buy the same day. They might come back days later after thinking it over, and that is completely normal and expected.

A lot of business owners think of advertising like a vending machine. You put money in, customers come out. If that is how you think about it, you are going to be disappointed quickly.

Here is what is actually happening when someone sees your ad. They stop scrolling for a second, watch a few seconds of your video or glance at your image, and then keep going. But your ad is sitting in the back of their mind. A few days later something reminds them of you, they look you up or get shown your ad again, and that is when they buy.

We have seen this pattern over and over across every type of business we have worked with. Someone clicks an ad on Monday but does not buy until Friday or Saturday, which means your ad needs to be running consistently for days just to collect on the interest it already earned. If you turn it off after two days because you have not seen results yet, you are leaving money on the table that was almost yours.

The biggest job in running Facebook ads is not writing a great ad. It is staying patient long enough to let the ad do its job.

This is why we tell every client the same thing before we start. Marketing is an investment, not a straight trade of money for sales, and there is always some risk involved. Part of what an experienced agency does is lower that risk based on what they have already learned from running other campaigns, but the risk never goes to zero, and anyone who tells you otherwise is not being straight with you.

The businesses that do best with Facebook advertising are the ones who understand this from day one.

What happens when you try to fix what is not broken

One of the most common mistakes small businesses make with Facebook ads is making too many changes too quickly. When a campaign starts working, the instinct is to keep tweaking it to squeeze out better results, but in most cases this disrupts the system and makes performance worse, not better.

One of our clients sells a digital product, let's call it "The Binge Break," a program designed to help people stop emotional eating. When we launched her Facebook ads, we set up the campaign the right way. We had a mix of video ads aimed at different types of people, some introducing the product to cold audiences and others aimed at people who had already shown interest. We kept it simple and let it run.

It was working. Our cost per purchase, meaning how much we were spending on ads for each person who actually bought, was around $30.

Then we started making changes. We adjusted the targeting, swapped out creatives, moved the budget around, and added more ads. Every individual change felt reasonable, but all those small changes together disrupted the system that was already performing.

The algorithm, which is the software Meta uses to figure out who to show your ads to, had already started learning who was most likely to buy. Every time we made a change, we reset that learning process and the algorithm had to start over, which costs both time and money.

The cost per purchase went from $30 to $80. Then to $112. We had taken something that was working and broke it trying to make it better.

When we figured out what happened, we stopped everything and rebuilt the campaign with a cleaner approach. We went back to the original strategy but gave the algorithm more options to work with, 21 different ads instead of 10. We also cut our daily budget in half to reduce pressure and added a small separate campaign running about $10 a day targeting people who had visited the checkout page but had not completed their purchase.

The cost per purchase came back down to around $25. Sometimes lower.

The lesson is not complicated. When something is working, the best thing you can do is leave it alone, because the instinct to keep optimizing is understandable, but it is often the thing that kills good campaigns.

What "wasted" ad spend actually buys you

Is money spent on Facebook ads that does not produce sales wasted? No.

Every dollar that does not convert into a sale teaches you something about your audience that makes the next dollar more effective. Advertising is a learning process, not a one-time transaction.

People ask us all the time how much of the $20,000 we spent in 2025 was wasted. The honest answer is that none of it was wasted, even the money that did not directly turn into a sale.

Think about dating. If your goal is to eventually find a long-term partner, you are going to go on a lot of dates that do not lead anywhere, but those dates are not a waste of time because each one teaches you something. You learn what you actually want. You learn what you definitely do not want. You get better at the process, and by the time you meet someone right for you, you are ready in a way you would not have been at the beginning.

Facebook ad spend works exactly the same way.

Every dollar you put into a campaign teaches you something about your audience, whether that is which messages make people stop scrolling, which type of person actually buys, or which offer makes them say yes. Some campaigns will not make money on their own, but they will tell you what to do differently next time, and you take that into the next campaign and the one after that. Over time, the campaigns that used to lose money start to break even, and the ones that broke even start to profit.

One reason agencies can get results faster is that we have already spent money learning what does not work across many different clients, and we bring that learning into every new campaign we run.

So in short, the process is what you pay for, and every dollar spent either turns into more dollars back or lessons that contribute to making your next dollar more effective.

More creative options beats one perfect ad

How many Facebook ads should a small business run at the same time? More than most people think.

Rather than finding one perfect ad and running it alone, giving the Meta algorithm a variety of ads to work with, typically 6 to 21 depending on your budget, allows the system to figure out which message works best for which person rather than leaving that decision entirely up to you.

There is a common belief that if you just find the perfect ad you can run it forever and it will keep producing results. We used to lean toward something close to that too.

Here is what running real campaigns actually taught us. Facebook and Instagram are showing your ads to millions, thousands, or hundreds of people depending on the size of your target audience, and different people respond to different things. Some stop for a funny video, some need to see someone like them sharing a real experience, and some respond to a plain text-based image with a clear message. You do not know which one will work best until you test them.

Meta has updated the way its system works over the past year or two, and the current approach rewards advertisers who give the algorithm a variety of options to choose from. Instead of picking the best ad yourself and running only that one, you give the system a range of ads and let it figure out who to show each one to based on who is actually buying.

When we rebuilt the campaign for "The Binge Break," we went from 10 ads to 21 without spending more money overall. We just gave the system more to work with, and results improved significantly.

One thing we have also learned is that how an ad is made matters as much as how many you make. Ads built with a clear goal, a real understanding of who is watching, and a specific message tend to outperform ads thrown together just to have something new to run. Volume matters, but the intention behind each one matters too.

If you are a business owner thinking about making your own ads, the advice is straightforward. Make more of them, do not wait until they are perfect, get them out, see what the data tells you, and make more of what works. Informed iteration is the key to a profitable campaign.

The ads are only part of the equation

Why do some businesses get better results from Facebook ads than others, even with the same budget? The difference usually comes down to what happens after someone sees the ad.

Speed of follow-up, quality of the sales process, and the business owner's willingness to be on camera in video ads are among the biggest factors that separate strong results from weak ones.

One of our clients named Cole runs an exterior maintenance business in Canada. When we started working together, almost all of his new customers came from door-to-door sales, which worked but was exhausting and hard to scale.

We built a Facebook ad campaign focused on his best service and ran it on a modest budget. Over the course of 2025, the campaign generated 320 leads that turned into 74 estimates, with an average job value of $2,737. On $4,400 in ad spend, Cole generated $124,000 in new revenue, which is nearly an 11 times return on what he put in, and he hit his goal of $410,000 in annual revenue that year.

But here is the part most people overlook. Cole was fast. When a lead came in, he called immediately, and he was good on the phone. He knew how to earn trust and move someone from curious to booked, so while the ads brought people to the door, Cole's ability as a salesperson is what got them inside.

We have seen campaigns with almost identical ad performance produce very different results for different clients, and the difference almost always comes down to what happens after the lead comes in.

Speed matters more than most people realize. When someone fills out a form saying they are interested in your service, they are interested right now, and if you call them an hour later that is not great, but if you call them the next day you have probably already lost them to someone faster. Something worth keeping in mind is that people who see your ad on Facebook are likely seeing similar ads from your competitors at the same time, since the platform targets people based on shared interests and behaviors. The faster you reach out, the less likely they are to also contact a competitor and potentially choose them instead.

Beyond speed, there are other things that make a real difference. A strong landing page, which is the webpage someone visits after clicking your ad, can dramatically affect how many people actually fill out your form or make a purchase, and a clear and simple process for someone to say yes matters just as much as the ad itself. Following up with people who showed interest but did not convert is also something a lot of businesses overlook.

We have also noticed that businesses where the owner or founder is willing to be on camera tend to get better results with Facebook ads. Video ads consistently outperform static image ads in most of the campaigns we run, and videos where a real person talks directly to the viewer tend to work better than anything else.

A lot of business owners are nervous about being on camera, and that is completely understandable, but the ones who push through it almost always see a difference. At Acquirely we provide detailed scripts and instructions around how to make effective videos, and we handle all the editing ourselves so that part never falls on you.

The ads are the start of the process. What you have built around them determines how much that process is worth.

What this means if you are thinking about running Facebook ads

Give it enough time to actually work, because a week is not enough and results come from consistency over weeks and months. The money you spend early on is teaching the system and building a foundation for what comes after.

Do not over-manage your campaigns once they start running. When something is working, let it run, because making small changes every few days disrupts the algorithm and can turn a good campaign into an expensive lesson very quickly.

Make sure you have a system in place to follow up with the leads or customers you get. The best Facebook ads in the world cannot make up for a slow response time or a confusing buying process on the other end. Many of the businesses Acquirely works with get access to our CRM and automation systems that help fill the gaps in their current follow-up process so leads do not fall through the cracks.

And understand that advertising is not a guarantee. It is a tool, and like any tool it works a lot better in the hands of someone who knows how to use it and has the patience to use it properly.

We have spent years and real money learning how to use it, and every lesson we picked up along the way goes into the next campaign we run. If you are curious whether Facebook ads could work for your business, that is exactly the kind of conversation we have on a free strategy call.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do Facebook ads actually work for small businesses? Yes. Facebook ads work for small businesses when the campaign is set up properly, given enough time to learn, and supported by a solid follow-up process. They are not an instant solution, and most campaigns take two to four weeks before producing consistent results. The businesses that succeed with Facebook ads treat it as a long-term investment rather than a quick fix.

How much should a small business spend on Facebook ads? A good starting point for most small businesses is $20 to $50 per day. At $20 per day you can realistically expect to start seeing lead or purchase data within the first week, though results improve significantly as the campaign learns over time. More budget means more data faster, but starting small and scaling slowly is a smarter approach than committing large amounts before you understand what works.

How long does it take for Facebook ads to work? Most Facebook ad campaigns need at least four to seven days before you can make any meaningful judgment about performance. Some campaigns produce results within the first few days while others take two to three weeks. The Meta algorithm needs enough data to figure out who to show your ads to, and cutting campaigns off early is one of the most common reasons businesses conclude that Facebook ads do not work, when in reality the campaign just needed more time.

Why are my Facebook ads not working? The most common reasons Facebook ads underperform are making too many changes too quickly, judging performance too early, having a weak follow-up process for leads, running only one or two ad creatives without variety, or having a landing page that does not convert well. In most cases the ads themselves are not the main problem, and the issue is usually something around or after the ad.

Should I hire someone to run my Facebook ads or do it myself? It depends on your time, budget, and how much you are willing to learn. Running Facebook ads yourself is possible, but the learning curve is real and the cost of mistakes adds up quickly. Hiring an experienced agency costs more upfront but tends to produce better results faster because they have already made the expensive mistakes on someone else's budget. If your time is better spent running your business, hiring out your ads usually makes sense once you are ready to invest consistently in marketing.

What type of Facebook ads work best for small businesses? Video ads featuring the business owner or a real person tend to outperform static image ads in most industries. Simple, authentic videos shot at your workplace or job site perform better than highly produced content in most cases, and a variety of ad formats gives the algorithm more to work with and usually leads to better overall results than running just one type.

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Written by Brayden Pauls, Co-Founder at Acquirely. In 2025, Acquirely's campaigns generated over $400,000 in client revenue on roughly $20,000 in ad spend across home services, real estate, and digital products. If you are thinking about running Facebook or Instagram ads for your business, start at acquirelyco.com.