The same three adjectives
Professional, reliable, affordable. True of everyone, so it describes no one. The ad that wins names the exact moment your client feels the problem, not the virtues of your firm.
Ad creative for service businessesFast, friendly, trusted. So is every competitor.
Agencies, consultants, clinics, trades and firms that win work through inquiries rather than a checkout. A caveat first: what counts as a win varies by trade, so we agree it on the kickoff call before the first drop.
What we see in service ads.
Service businesses tend to describe themselves the way every competitor does, and the words do not stop a scroll.
Leads that aren't clients
An ad that promises a free quote to anyone earns inquiries from everyone, most of them never going to buy. The hook decides who replies, so it has to describe your real client.
A sales cycle the ad ignores
A service is bought after a call, a proposal, a think. The ad's job is the first step, an inquiry worth answering, and it should say what happens next so the right people take it.
What we'd make first
Open on the moment they feel the problem.
The overflowing inbox, the missed deadline, the invoice chased for the third time, the form nobody understands. We find the exact painful moment your client has every week and open the ad on it. Problem statics and short explainer motion suit services well, because each carries one clear idea quickly.
- Problem-agitate static: the painful moment, then the one line that resolves it
- Short explainer motion: how it works in three steps, no jargon
- Founder or lead to camera: who they'll actually deal with
- A case in one sentence, with permission: the before, the after, the time it took
A first drop for a service business, ad by ad.
Starter's twelve ads a month suits most firms: a service audience is smaller and the ads tire more slowly. The first week looks like this.
- The painful moment, staticproblem first
- Three steps, motionspecificity
- Who you'll deal with, UGC-stylefamiliarity
- The painful moment, static: problem first (the inbox, the deadline, the chase)
- Three steps, motion: specificity (what happens after they inquire)
- Who you'll deal with, UGC-style: familiarity (a face, a name, a real desk)
- One case in a sentence, static: social proof (with the client's permission)
- What it costs to wait, static: loss aversion (the month lost by not fixing it)
- Not for everyone, static: self-selection (who you don't work with, said plainly)
- The question they ask first, UGC-style: objection handling (price, time, trust)
- The quiet guarantee, static: risk reversal (what happens if it doesn't work out)
Illustration: the shape of a first drop, not a client's ads. Every ad is remade to your brief.
The numbers we watch for a service.
Cost per qualified inquiry, which is a number you and we define together: an inquiry from a business of the right size, in the right place, with the right problem. The hook rate and click-through rate tell us which ads earn attention; your reply to each inquiry tells us which ads earn the right kind. Share that each week and the next drop sharpens who the ads speak to.
A service audience is smaller than a store's, so we test fewer ideas at a time and give each longer to prove itself, and the weekly note says which one is pulling ahead.
Each drop is judged on that qualified number, not the raw count. A cheap form fill from someone you would never take on counts against the ad that brought it, because the hook decided who replied. An ad with fewer inquiries, nearly all of them worth a call back, is the one the next Monday's drop is built around.
What a service firm's drop holds, and what stays yours.
Statics, explainers and faces, sized to run
Problem statics, short explainer motion and the lead to camera each arrive in 9:16 for Reels, Stories and TikTok, with 4:5 and 1:1 versions for the feed. Every ad comes with its hook, caption and headline written in your clients' words, not your industry's, and a person checks each claim before it reaches you.
Client stories, real or not at all
The FTC's Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule, fully in effect since October 21, 2024, bans fake reviews and testimonials, including ones from people who do not exist, and bought or undisclosed insider reviews. Source: the FTC's rule on reviews and testimonials. A case line in your ads comes from a client who agreed to it, in words they would recognize as theirs. Regulated or not, the categories we decline are listed on who we make ads for.
What you keep and what you hear
You approve every ad before it runs, and one that misses the brief is remade free within seven days. Once paid for, each ad is licensed to you for any channel with no time limit, so a strong explainer can also open a proposal or a sales call. We send a three-line note every week on what we are testing and why; Growth and Scale add a monthly video report.
How it works for a service business.
A weekly drop, steered by the one thing only you know: which inquiries were worth having.
Define a qualified inquiry
On the kickoff call we agree what a good one looks like for your firm: the size of client, the place, the problem.
Open on the painful moment
Your first drop, within seven days, puts several of your client's worst weekly moments on screen, each as a different ad.
Three lines back each week
You run the ads and tell us which inquiries were worth answering. That note turns ad numbers into business numbers.
Sharpen who the ads call in
The next Monday's drop leans into the moment that brought real clients and drops the one that brought the wrong ones.
Where most service businesses start.
Starter: £1,250 a month for 12 ads. Twelve ads a month is enough variety for a local or specialist audience, and the three-month term gives a longer sales cycle time to show its results. Firms selling nationally with real budget move to Growth once an angle wins.
Questions we get from service businesses.
Can you make ads for a regulated service, such as finance or health?
Sometimes. We never make ads with claims you cannot substantiate, and we turn down categories where ads mislead or harm, listed on the who it's for page. Tell us what you do on the review form and we will say honestly.
We sell to businesses, not consumers. Does Meta even work?
It can, when the ad names the exact problem a specific kind of business has, because the person who feels that problem is scrolling like anyone else. The targeting comes from the creative, which is the whole point of how we work.
What do you need from us each week?
A note on which inquiries were worth having. Three lines is enough. It is the one input that turns ad numbers into business numbers.
Concept work: every ad in these teardowns is a concept we drew, not a real advertiser's or a client's ad.
More teardowns for this kind of business:
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