Solved: Local Ad Targeting Playbook for Retail Store

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out! Sorry to hear about the rough start with the ads, spending that much without a return is a really tough pill to swallow. It's a completely different ballgame trying to drive foot traffic to a physical shop versus selling online, but it can absolutely be done if you set it up right from the start.

I'm happy to give you some initial thoughts and a bit of a playbook. The key isn't just targeting locally; it's about having an offer that people actually want and using the right tools on Facebook to get them through the door.

We'll need to look at your offer first, because that's where most campaigns fail...

Before you spend another penny on ads, we have to be brutally honest about the offer. This was almost certainly a huge part of why the $15k on your e-commerce store didn't work, and it'll be the number one reason a local campaign fails too. An offer isn't just a discount; it's the entire reason someone should stop scrolling, pay attention, and then physically get up and come to your store.

You mentioned "free samples or a discount". To be blunt, that's not compelling enough. Every single beauty counter in every department store offers free samples. It's expected, it's low value, and it doesn't create any urgency. A small discount is just as weak. You're asking someone to change their plans, travel to the mall, find your shop, all for what? A tiny pot of moisturiser or 10% off? It's not going to happen.

Your offer’s only job is to deliver a moment of undeniable value—an "aha!" moment that makes the prospect feel like they'd be silly *not* to come in. You need to stop thinking like an e-commerce brand pushing a product and start thinking like a service that solves a problem. Your customers don't just want skincare; they want clear skin, confidence, and expert advice. So, your offer should reflect that.

Instead of a generic "free sample", consider something like:

• "Your Free 10-Minute Skin Analysis & Custom Sample Kit"

Why is this so much better? It offers expertise ("Analysis"), personalisation ("Custom"), and still gives them the freebie they wanted ("Sample Kit"). It reframes the interaction from a cheap handout to a valuable, expert consultation. It solves a real problem for people who are confused about what products to use. This is something they can't get online and it positions your brand as an authority. This is how you get someone to make a special trip.

The perceived value is what drives action. Let's look at how a potential customer might see these different offers.

Fixing the offer is the first and most important step. Don't move on until you have something that feels genuinely valuable and irresistible to your ideal customer.

I'd say you need the right campaign objective, or you're just throwing money away...

Once your offer is solid, the next technical step is picking the right campaign objective in Facebook Ads Manager. This is non-negotiable. So many people get this wrong and wonder why their ads don't work. The algorithm does *exactly* what you tell it to do.

If you tell it you want "Brand Awareness" or "Reach," you're giving it a specific command: "Find me the largest number of people for the lowest possible price within this area." The algorithm will then find all the people who are constantly online but never click, engage, or buy anything. Their attention is cheap for a reason. You are actively paying Facebook to find you the worst possible audience. You've already spent $15k finding people who don't buy, let's not do that again.

For a physical retail location, you want to use the Store Traffic objective.

This objective tells the algorithm: "Find people within my target area who have a history of visiting physical stores after seeing an ad and are most likely to come to my location." It uses location services on people's phones (for those who have opted in), store visit data, and other signals to optimise for actual footfall. It's specifically designed for what you want to acheive.

This is a completely different instruction to the algorithm. It will cost more per person reached, but the quality of that person will be infinitely higher. You're not just blasting an ad at everyone in the mall; you're surgically targeting the people within that group who are most likely to walk into your shop. This single choice can be the difference between a campaign that works and one that burns through your budget with nothing to show for it.

You probably should rethink your targeting to find quality customers...

With the right offer and objective, we can now think about who to show the ads to. Just targeting a 2-mile radius around the mall isn't enough. That's a lazy approach. Your mall is full of people who aren't your customer. You need to find *your* people who happen to be near the mall.

This is where you'll layer your targeting. Think of it like a funnel. You start broad with the location and then narrow it down with interests and behaviours that signal they are your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).

Here's how I would structure the audience testing:

1. Start with location. Target the postcode of your mall and a reasonable radius around it, maybe 5-10 miles. You can also target people 'living in' this location, not just those 'recently in' it, to find actual locals.
2. Layer on interests. This is the most important bit. Who is your customer? What brands do they already love? (e.g., Kiehl's, Drunk Elephant). What magazines or influencers do they follow? (e.g., Vogue, Caroline Hirons). What skincare ingredients are they searching for? (e.g., 'Hyaluronic Acid', 'Retinol'). Create separate ad sets to test different themes of interests:
   • Ad Set 1: Competitor Brands (Lush, The Body Shop, etc.)
   • Ad Set 2: Luxury/High-End Interests (Space NK, Net-a-Porter, shoppers who prefer high-value goods)
   • Ad Set 3: Ingredient/Problem Focused (Interests in 'Acne', 'Anti-aging', 'Vitamin C Serums')
3. Build Retargeting Audiences. Even for a local store, you should retarget. Anyone who engages with your ad but doesn't claim the offer should see a follow-up ad a few days later. You can also upload a list of your past online customers who live locally and target them with a special "welcome to the neighbourhood" offer.

By layering targeting, you ensure your ad for a premium skincare product isn't being shown to a teenager in the mall food court who has no interest or budget for your products. You're speaking directly to your perfect customer who just happens to be a short drive away.

You'll need a way to track and capture leads...

Okay, so we have a great offer and we're showing it to the right people. How do we bridge the gap between them seeing the ad on their phone and walking into your store? You need a simple, frictionless "funnel".

Don't just put your address in the ad copy and hope for the best. It's not trackable and there's no commitment from the user. Instead, the ad's call-to-action button (e.g., "Get Offer") should lead to a very simple landing page.

The purpose of this landing page is twofold:

1. To Capture Their Information: Get their email address in exchange for the offer. Now they are a lead. You can follow up with them, remind them to redeem their offer, and add them to your email list for future marketing.
2. To Make the Offer Tangible: Once they enter their email, they could be sent a unique QR code or a voucher to their inbox. This feels official. It's something they now "own" and are more likely to use, because of a psychological principle called the endowment effect.

Your ad copy should use a simple framework like the Before-After-Bridge. You're selling the transformation.

• Before: "Tired of guessing which skincare products actually work for you?"
• After: "Imagine having a personalised routine, recommended by an expert, that gives you glowing skin."
• Bridge: "Claim your free 10-minute skin analysis and custom sample kit at our new store in [Mall Name]. Click to get your voucher now."

This whole process turns a casual viewer into a committed lead. They have taken multiple steps and are now far more invested in visiting your store than someone who just glanced at an ad.

I'd say you need to budget properly and estimate your return...

After your last experience, you're rightly concerned about the budget. For local ads, you can start smaller. But you still need to be realistic. The key is to understand the numbers and what you can afford to pay for a potential customer walking through the door.

Let's break down the potential costs. Unlike e-commerce, your final goal isn't a purchase, it's a "Store Visit". We can estimate this. Use the calculator below to get a feel for the numbers. CPC (Cost Per Click) for local ads on Meta can be anywhere from $0.50 to $2.00 depending on competition. The conversion rate on your landing page (how many people who click actually enter their email) should be at least 20-30% if it's simple and the offer is good.

Based on this, for a $1,000 monthly spend, you could generate around 200 leads. If even half of those people come into the store to redeem the offer (a 50% redemption rate), that's 100 extra people in your shop a month. What is that worth to you? If each of those people spends an average of $50, that's $5,000 in revenue from $1,000 in ad spend. That's a 5x ROAS. Now we're talking.

This is the main advice I have for you:

To pull this all together, here is a summary of the playbook I would recommend. This is a fundamentally different approach from your last attempt and is built around driving real-world results for a physical store.

I know this is a lot to take in, especially after a bad experience. The principles are straightforward, but getting the execution right—the ad copy, the landing page design, the daily optimisation—is where it gets tricky and time-consuming. It’s where expertise really makes a difference in turning a plan into actual profit.

If you'd like to go over this in more detail and see how a professionally managed campaign could be structured for your new store, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation. We could review your specific situation and give you an even clearer picture of the potential. Feel free to book a call if that sounds helpful.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh