Facebook Ads on a $10/day budget. Is it even possible?

So everyone says you need thousands of dollars for paid ads to work, which is very true, but doesn't necessarily have to be true when you're testing out stuff. So I'm going to show you exactly what happens when you run Facebook ads on just $10 a day. And this is specifically for a service-based business because we've done this, like we've run low-budget campaigns for hundreds of businesses. And I promise you what actually happened is something that you might be able to implement yourself and might actually find super tactical because let's be honest, like spending $10 a day is pretty much $300 a month. And that's pretty much it. Like you're not going to become a millionaire off this budget, but you can generate quote unquote real leads if you do it right. Because especially if this is your first time advertising, like in anything or your specific business, you need to have test data first and you need to actually convert people within, let's say, a smaller budget so you can confidently scale. So $10 a day, by the way, is kind of like the bare minimum. Like in 2026, at the time of recording this video, $10 a day is nothing. Like people are spending $1,000 a day because of course they've cracked the formula. They've achieved the math that makes sense for them to spend that kind of money because they for a fact know if they spend $5,000 on an ad, how much they can get back. So that is the level of predictability you need when it comes to running an ad. And I actually have kind of like a live example open here for you guys, which is a client account. And this is something I'm comfortable sharing because like we're not— we're going to be turning this one off pretty soon and activating something new completely. So, and also do like some very quick, simple math for you guys, because let's say if you're spending $10 a day and if your cost per lead is, let's say $15 to $25, you're looking at 12 to 20 leads a month for a service-based business. And which is pretty much nothing because you have to understand the difference between a Facebook lead, inbound lead, a Google lead, and a referral lead. So referrals are like, of course, the most easiest people to close. If you're going to be using the same formula you use to close referral people on Facebook or like any online lead, You're going to struggle, like just flat out, you're going to have a very bad time. So you need to have a very specific sales process, which needs to be dialed in, in order to convert these people. And I just like to frame it to people in a very simple manner and a very understandable manner. Like if running ads was that easy, like you just get some leads and just close them kind of like an e-com shop, then I'm not saying e-com is easy, but it's not necessarily super transactional where you just send somebody to the website, they buy and that's it. For service-based businesses, there's a lot more steps involved. Of course, you get the lead, you have to call the lead, you have to follow up with the lead, you have to have a dialed-in sales process so you can actually convert that lead. Because chances are, if you're getting a lead, which is $10, your competitors are also generating that same lead as well. So it's going to be pretty much who reaches out to them first, who has a better deal, who has a better intro offer, who can get them to the door first. Now, of course, this depends by the niche as well, and the cost per lead is going to vary by the industry as well. Because let's say if you're, ticket price starts at $5,000, then your cost per lead ideally should be around like maybe like even $100. Because if— and this is qualified lead— because if you're paying for a qualified lead and that has a chance of a $5,000 sale, then your uptake on that is like pretty much $4,900. Now, does it always work that evenly? Not necessarily. You might have to generate 10 leads before you close one, like 10 qualified leads. So you might have to spend $1,000 before you close one. So at that point, you're not even looking at cost per lead. You're looking into cost to acquire a customer. So your cost to acquire a customer at that point might be $1,000 because you're spending $1,000 to get a $5,000 customer. So the math has to work out in that sense. But now another thing you might mention is like, Areeb, but what about my profits? Because if I'm like, $5,000 is not complete profit to me. Like I have to spend $3,000 here, $1,000 here, $1,000 here. That's kind of like a business thing you have to figure out. Like that's kind of like a marginal issue you have to figure out on pretty much behind the scenes. Like ads cannot help you that. If your cost to acquire customer is $3,000 and your offer is $6,000, but you have to pay your people $4,000. And like the product just needs to be like, you need to raise your prices or something because ads will not help you pretty much solve the margin issue. We just look into one thing. What is your, like, what is your offer? Like let's say it's $5,000. And what did it take for us to get you that close in the first place? Because if you're coming to us like, hey Areeb, yeah, fantastic that you got us a customer for $1,000. but like within this $5,000, my profit margin is only 5%. Like there's nothing I personally can do or like a marketer can do for you for that. So that is something of course, behind the scenes, you need to look into something like that as well. So at a low cost budget, what I usually recommend, like you don't necessarily need to have a ton of ads. You just need to have one campaign, one ad set. In this case, of course, we've tried two different types of ad sets. And you just need to have like 5 videos on an ad set. That's the only thing you need to try and try video ads. Like don't necessarily just do image ads. Image ads bring you more leads, but the leads are low intent. Like people will just see something, they like it. They just want to fill out something as fast as possible to speak to a person. So they might not even be qualified. So make sure you're optimizing for videos best. So videos might cost you a little bit more cost per lead, but then again, you have to understand the math. So let me just break it down to you this way. So for example, let's say if you're spending $3,000 a month and let me do some math for you. So yeah, let's say you're spending $3,000 a month on ads and let's say you get, I don't know, like 100 leads. So you're pretty much— not 1,000, that'd be nice. So you're basically paying $3,000. Let me just write this down over here for you as well. So $3,000 divided by 100 is equal to 30 leads. That's basically what you're, what you're paying for, like $30 a lead. But now let's say out of these 100 leads, which cost you $30, only 40 of them are qualified. So now let's do the math again. So let's say $3,000 divided by 40, this time $75. So your actual cost per lead is $75, cost per qualified lead. And this is something you need to be optimizing for because if you're optimizing for just leads and nobody's closing and nobody's qualified, then it doesn't necessarily matter. So you need to make sure you're counting the cost per qualified lead because this is just woo-woo numbers. Like this is not a real number because like if somebody is disqualified, you logically cannot sell to them because it's a disqualified prospect. So if somebody is qualified, like this is going to be, let's say if 40 of the 100 are qualified, this is your real number. As you can see, it's doubled, but this is the reality. And some people just, you know, don't necessarily even take account of this. So this is kind of like extremely important. So if somebody is not qualified, do not count them as kind of like a lead, like make sure you know your actual lead numbers. And then from there, even you can do another. So let's say out of the 40, maybe 5 of them close, 5 close. So your cost to acquire a customer, meaning out of the $3,000, you only closed 5, that's $600. So this basically means for every $600 you spend, you're going to acquire a customer because you did 5 closes. So that is pretty much what it means to look for qualified leads and pretty much breaking down the math. So if, as soon as you have this math, you pretty much make this into a predictable asset. So for example, let's say next month you spend $6,000. And of course these numbers vary as well. So this is not kind of like a guarantee. Like this is just for explanation purposes. So let's say you get 10, 10 closes, for example, because your cost to acquire a customer is still $600. Now this would bounce. I guess I have to understand like not every month is going to be the same. This would depend on the seasonality of your business. This depends per business case as well, because for a $600 to $800 CAC, you need to have at least a $3,500 or even I would say like $1,500 to $4,000 product for this to even make sense. Because logically speaking, if your service is— service only costs a one-time of $500, then this, this just becomes unprofitable. Where this does make sense is pretty much LTV to CAC ratio. So for example, let's say you have a customer and you pretty much keep them for like 8 months. And then you charge them like $500 per month, then you can pretty much do the math over here. So $500 multiplied by, multiplied by 8, so that is going to be what, $4,000? Let me just verify that. $500 multiplied by 8, yeah, correct. So that's going to be $4,000. So of course it's going to take you 8 months to realize this, but you can stack this up as much as you can. So for example, if it costs you $600 to acquire that customer in the first place, then for every $600 you spend, you can acquire a $4,000 customer. But this would take you, of course, 8 months to realize. Of course, you're— if you're very confident that, you know, you can keep them for like 8 months or 12 months or forever, but this is how you can pretty much kind of like buy customers. But the math needs to make sense as well. So of course, this is just one of those things you need to realize as well, because most people just are very stuck on here. Like, yeah, Areeb, I'm getting $30 cost per lead. Leads are cheap, but I'm not closing anybody because usually the sales process is missing. There's a lot of variables that are missing. So you have to understand that we're pretty much understanding what our math is and actually have a test budget as well. Because if you're only running ads for a month, you're not going to get anything. For 3 months, the chances are you're not going to get anything from that ad because Meta ads is extremely profitable and it's not easy to crack. Anything that can be profitable usually takes a little while to crack because it's an amazing asset for your business. And if it was that easy, everyone would be rich. Like, it's like, that's just the game. So you need to make sure you actually understand, like, just by having the knowledge of, like, I'm telling you this, if you have a test budget for 3 months and you just understand that, okay, I have to have kind of like a playing budget to get to my numbers in the first place. It's going to set you apart from most of your competitors because most of your competitors are just afraid to spend anything. As soon as they spend first month, they just want to back out. They're going to go back to referrals and they're just going to be in this endless loop of hiring an agency here, hiring an agency there. Give it at the very minimum 3 months. I would sometimes, I even suggest 6 months. So for example, whenever people work with us, 3 months is something where we prove to them like, hey, so this is what you can do to close people. And most people, of course, to be fair, like they close like people within the first month or first 2 months because we've been doing this for a while. We can pretty much make the entire process super easy by like what the process should be. But if you're doing this yourself, you'd have to understand you give at least 3 to 4 months of testing. And not to say you're not going to close anybody in this, in this section, but this is just a mindset thing to have. Like 3 to 4 months is just testing. And then from there you need to scale as soon as it becomes profitable. Becomes profitable, you need to 2x ad spend. You need to keep increasing it. You need to be in the mindset of like more and more and more. You need to keep increasing it. That's how you kind of like push through the barriers of pretty much your business on this, because you need to have this pretty much in place. Because if you don't, you're just going to stick on relying on referrals. It's either just super scale or it's nothing. Like that's the mindset usually like people operate on when it comes to running ads. Now, that being said, let me of course show you an example as well of how you can set up kind of like a very simple campaign. So especially if you're just starting out, you need to make sure that you have a couple of things in place. So the first thing is set your ad budget. You can do this on a campaign level or on an ad set budget level. I would just do it on a campaign level. And then from there, just have kind of like, you know, $30 you're spending. And then on the ad section, of course, this is where you want to make sure that you're actually targeting people within the right area. So of course, if you're local, make sure you add in the local areas. I would not add in any demographics, interests, or behaviors. You do not want to do that because in 2026, of course, like with the AI algorithm, and then of course Facebook's machine learning is way better than what you're going to type here. I'm pretty sure within a couple of months, they're not even going to have this section. By the time you're watching this, they might not even have this. And we've done this multiple times. Trust me, you do not need this specific section. Because most of your targeting is going to be done inside of the video itself. And let me kind of like show you the ad as well. Hi, welcome to your apartment at Define Living. So here at Define Living, and this is of course like promoting an apartment. So for example, people who are in the market of moving into a new apartment like this person, his entire business is, you know, having a well-thought-out, you know, living space. It has like good amenities so that like his main goal is to pretty much attract more people to the specific property. So, you know, like, it's kind of like a rental thing. So that's, that's the business. So of course we made multiple variations of ads, and of course the ads are very high quality, and the ads do 90% of the work. Because I'm pretty sure, let's say if you're a dude watching this, like, you don't get an ad for lipstick because you're a dude. And Facebook's know that, like, the algorithms know that. You only get ads that are relevant to you. Because if you start speaking about like dog stuff Next time you open your application, you're going to get ads about dog stuff. That's just how it works. These, you have to understand Meta, this is a billion-dollar industry. If I'm not mistaken, they could be making trillions now at this point. They invest a lot more into this than you realize. It's very smart. All you have to do is make sure that you're giving it a good creative because one thing Meta cannot do for you is help you make a good standing out creative. Like a good, well-thought-out video with a good hook portion, good value portion, and a good call to action. So I'm gonna just write this down here, like a good hook. This is going to be extremely important because not everybody watches a video at 100%. Some people only watch it at like 30% or even like 40%. So good hook. Are you looking for an apartment here in Houston? Something like that. So we have to make sure that the hook pretty much hits. Are you— if you're in Houston, I have a fantastic offer for you. Something like that. Like it needs to hit, like the hook needs to hit. And you have to test out multiple different hooks because chances are the hook you think is going to work the best performs the worst. Like that happens all the time. And the hook that you think is going to perform the worst performs the best. So until you test that, you don't necessarily know anything. So just have that in mind. Value portion, what is the offer and how is it done? And then call to action. What do you want them to do? So very, very important. So the ad should be pretty much this structure. Now, of course, you can be a little more creative and like, you know, make different types of videos, like real stuff, but just follow this exact thing and you'll be pretty much fine. And then of course on the qualification form as well, because this is where they will be pretty much filling out the form. So we just need to ask them like, what are they interested in? So of course the person who's going to be dialing them has enough information on what they're looking for. For. And then from there, we're just asking their first name, last name, phone number, and email. Now, one thing I would add in over here is we— you need to add— this is, of course, guys, you have to understand, like, this is what's working for them because this is just generating them leads. But ideally, you also want a conditional logic question that also disqualifies somebody. So if I go over here and if I go over to questions, I would also ask a question I think we already have it actually. Okay, now it's over here. So like a question could be something like, are you located in Houston? If the answer is no, then they're a disqualified lead. And sometimes this happens, like Meta might start showing your ad to people in Dallas because some of your ads are being shared by someone's relative. And that's, that is something that happens. So you just have to make sure that if, if that happens and if you're getting a lot of leads that are not in, let's say, Houston where I'm at, you can just add in a question within this Hey, are you located in Houston? It's very simple to do. All you have to do is just click on a question, multiple choice. Are you based in Houston? And then yes, no. And if it's no, then you just close the form. And if it's yes, then you just go to the next question, which is question number 8, I believe, in this form. There you go. Perfect. Close form. Perfect. Cool. And this is giving me the error because this is an existing form, but this is pretty much if somebody clicks on no, it's just going to reject them and then it's not going to count as a lead. So this is also you sending data back to Facebook on what gets registered as a lead and what doesn't get registered as a lead. So you're getting the quality up as you ask more of these questions. So you might think like, hey, I need more leads, so I need to ask less questions. No, like you need to add in as much friction as possible. Of course, not too much. You don't want like a 20-questionnaire form and then just having them do puzzles and stuff. Just add like 5, 6 questions, make 1 or 2 open-ended, and then just ask logical questions. Sometimes even put the budget on there, like, hey, is this within your budget? Hey, is this something you can do in the next couple of months? So whatever qualifying questions you always ask your ideal customer has, just put that into the form so Facebook can identify the difference between a qualified person and a not qualified person. Because if you're registering a lead for pretty much like anybody who has, who can like breathe oxygen, then it's just Facebook's not going to know the difference. It's just going to count everything as a success. I'm like, I mean, hey, you wanted this, you optimize, you optimize the campaign for this. So they're just going to give you everything. So super, super important, just kind of like, you know, doing it this way as well. And then make sure you only have one ad set. So for a budget for like $10, $20, $30 a day, just do one ad set. No need to create like multiple ad sets with multiple ads. Just do one ad set with like 5 ads in it. That's it. And then you'll be pretty much fine. Cool. All right. So that is pretty much it for today's video. If you do have any questions, just leave it down in the comment section below. And if you do need help with like advertising, of course, at kind of like a much bigger scale. So if you're comfortable spending like $100 a day, $50 a day at the very minimum to test, um, we have a service where we pretty much take care of all of this. Like we take care of the content, the ads, and it is pretty much entirely done for you. We have a fantastic team that makes the entire process super easy for you. If that is something you're interested in, just click on the Calendly link in the description and we'll speak to you very, very soon. All right. Take care.