What do Meta ads cost for a Melbourne business?

Meta ads for Melbourne service businesses cost $500–$3,000/mo in ad spend depending on campaign scale. A local awareness campaign targeting a 5km radius at $15–$20/day costs approximately $450–$600/mo and reaches 3,000–8,000 new local people per week. A full-funnel system (awareness + retargeting + conversion) for a Melbourne dealership or real estate agent typically runs $1,000–$3,000/mo in ad spend. Konquer Media bundles ad spend into its retainer at cost — no agency markup — so the full ad budget goes to Meta rather than partially to an agency fee.

What is the difference between boosting a post and running a Meta ad campaign?

Boosting a post is a simplified one-objective promotion — it increases reach to a basic audience with limited targeting options. A Meta ad campaign is managed through Meta Ads Manager with full control over campaign objective (awareness, traffic, leads, conversions), detailed audience targeting (age, suburb, interests, behaviours, homeowner signals, automotive intent), creative testing (A/B testing multiple ad formats), placement optimisation (Reels, Stories, Feed, Audience Network), and attribution (tracking which ad produced which booking or enquiry). Boosting is appropriate for a $50 post to local followers. A campaign is what you use when you're trying to generate test-drive bookings from people who've never heard of the dealership.

How long before Melbourne Meta ads produce results?

Melbourne Meta ads go through a learning phase of 7–14 days during which the algorithm optimises delivery to the best-performing audience segments. Meaningful lead volume typically starts in weeks 2–3 as the learning phase completes. The full compounding effect — awareness campaigns building a retargeting pool, retargeting converting warm audiences — takes 4–6 weeks to reach steady state. Konquer Media's three-month minimum retainer exists because the first month is production and campaign setup, the second month is the learning phase, and the third month is when the compounding system starts performing at full capacity.

Paid social · Melbourne

Meta ads Melbourne: how Facebook and Instagram advertising actually works for local service businesses

A boosted post is not a Meta ads campaign. An awareness campaign without retargeting is not a lead generation system. Here's how Facebook and Instagram advertising works for Melbourne service businesses — what the campaign structure looks like, what the costs are, and why the content matters as much as the targeting.

Most Melbourne small businesses are running Meta ads wrong — either boosting posts from their phone or running awareness campaigns with no retargeting conversion layer. The result is decent reach, some engagement, and no measurable commercial outcome. Meta ads that generate test-drive bookings, restaurant reservations, appraisal enquiries and pre-approval applications use a specific campaign architecture. Here's what that looks like.

campaign objective first, creative second

The first question in Meta advertising is not "what creative should we make" — it's "what commercial outcome do we want from this campaign?" The objective determines everything: which campaign type to run, how to structure the audience, what the ad creative needs to do in its first three seconds, and how to measure success.

For Melbourne service businesses, the typical campaign objectives:

Traffic + reach (awareness): Get the business in front of new local people. Measured by reach, video views, and profile visits. This is the pool-building campaign that enables retargeting.

Leads: Generate form submissions or DM starts directly through Meta. Good for pre-approval applications, appraisal bookings, and function enquiry forms. Measured by cost-per-lead.

Conversions: Drive people to a landing page or booking system. Measured by cost-per-booking or cost-per-enquiry. Requires a Meta pixel on the website.

Messages: Drive DM conversations. Works well for service businesses where the purchase decision happens in conversation. Measured by cost-per-conversation started.

the two-campaign system that generates leads

The Meta ads structure that consistently generates leads for Melbourne service businesses uses two campaign layers:

Campaign 1 — awareness: Runs the best-performing video content (atmospheric Reels, inventory walkthroughs, service demonstrations) to cold local audiences. Geo-targeted by suburb radius (5–8km for hospitality, 10–20km for real estate, 20–50km for automotive). Runs continuously at $15–$30/day. This campaign builds a custom audience of people who've watched at least 50% of the video — the warm pool.

Campaign 2 — retargeting: Runs direct-response creative to the warm audience from Campaign 1. "Book a test drive this weekend." "Available Wednesday — book through the link." "Thinking of selling in [suburb]? Get a free appraisal." The retargeting audience already recognises the business; they need one more touchpoint and a specific call to action. This is the campaign that produces most of the actual leads.

Running Campaign 1 without Campaign 2 generates reach. Running Campaign 2 without Campaign 1 targets a cold audience with a direct-response ask that hasn't been earned. Both layers together produce a compounding system where the awareness investment continuously fills the retargeting pool.

audience targeting for Melbourne service businesses

Meta's audience targeting for Melbourne local businesses:

Geographic targeting: Suburb-level geo-targeting, not just city-level. A restaurant in Richmond should target Richmond, Fitzroy, Collingwood and Richmond-adjacent suburbs — not "Melbourne." The relevance of the content to the viewer increases significantly when the targeting is suburb-specific.

Interest and behaviour signals: Automotive intent (car shopping, vehicle research), homeowner signals, first-home-buyer life events, dining intent, investment property interest. These signals are strong for service businesses targeting specific buyer profiles.

Lookalike audiences: Built from existing customer lists (past car buyers, settled vendors, regular diners, past clients). Meta finds Melbourne users who share characteristics with the existing customer base. Typically the highest-performing cold audience type once there are 500+ seed customers.

the content requirement for Meta ads

Meta advertising is a creative-first platform. The algorithm distributes well-performing creative more cheaply than poorly-performing creative — a Reel with a strong hook and high retention rate costs less per thousand views than generic content. This means the creative quality directly affects the cost-efficiency of the ad spend.

For Melbourne service businesses, the creative that works is specific and real: the actual vehicle on the actual showroom floor, the actual venue at actual service, the actual agent in the actual suburb. Not stock footage, not studio backgrounds, not generic lifestyle content. This is the reason Konquer Media treats production and paid as one system rather than two separate services — the campaign structure should inform the creative brief before the shoot.

ad spend and agency costs

Most Melbourne Meta ads agencies charge a management fee (typically 15–30% of ad spend or a flat monthly fee) on top of the actual ad spend. Konquer Media's model is different: ad spend is bundled into the retainer and passed to Meta at cost — no percentage markup on media. The Launch retainer ($2,500/mo) includes $500 in Meta ad spend; Growth ($5,000/mo) includes $1,500; Scale ($10,000/mo) includes $3,000+.

For the broader paid social strategy, see Facebook ads agency Melbourne. For how Meta ads fit into the full marketing system, see lead generation Melbourne. For the production that powers the campaigns, see short-form video agency Melbourne. For pricing across all tiers, see our pricing page.

Book a brief → See pricing