How To Make $2,000+ a Month Running Facebook Ads For Local Businesses
Want to learn how to make extra money each month running Facebook ads for small businesses – even if you have no marketing experience?
Today, I’m sharing an interview with my friend Bobby Hoyt. Bobby is the co-founder of Laptop Empires and founder and CEO of Stellar Brands.
He started running Facebook ads after quitting his stable, full-time teaching job to work online. One client quickly turned into more, and he was out-earning what he made as a teacher in less than a year. Now, through Laptop Empires and Stellar Brands, he teaches others how to launch, grow, and scale online businesses like he’s done.
In this interview, you’ll learn how Bobby got started, how much you can earn with this online business idea, what kind of businesses hire Facebook ad managers, how to find your first client, and more.
If you’re looking for a beginner-friendly way to make extra money each month, this is a great option to try, especially if you’re looking for something that doesn’t require working long hours or learning something super complicated.
I also recommend joining the waitlist for his Facebook Side Hustle Course by clicking here. About a week before the course officially opens, you’ll get access to the first module for free. It’s a great introduction to how the side hustle works, what you can earn, and how to get your first win.
How To Make $2,000+ a Month Running Facebook Ads For Local BusinessesThis interview is for you if you want to learn how to start a Facebook ads business right now.
1. Can you share your story and tell us how you started running Facebook ads for businesses?Sure! My journey with Facebook ads started back in 2016, right after I had left my job to run my personal finance blog, Millennial Money Man.
I was having a hard time figuring out how to get traffic to my site, so I started dabbling with Facebook ads to see if I could get some traction. After some time and a lot of experimenting, I was getting clicks to the site for a penny each!
At the same time, the jeweler that did my wife’s engagement ring had been a fan of the blog and reached out to see if I could help them with their online marketing. I needed money pretty badly back then, so I jumped at the opportunity.
I managed their blog, wrote their emails and social media posts, and started running Facebook ads as well.
Over time, I started adding more clients to my roster, and the primary service I provided was Facebook ads because they worked so well for local businesses.
We’ve all seen them – it’s basically an advertisement that looks similar to an organic Facebook post in the news feed.
You choose an image, create the copy (marketing speak for words that you use to get a user to take an action), and set the budget and choose placements where you’d like the ads to appear.
When you run Facebook ads, you can choose to also have them run on Instagram (they’re part of the same network), or even third-party sites that allow Facebook ads.
I wouldn’t say that there’s necessarily a cap on how much you can make with this service. You can choose to run a boutique operation with one or two clients, and the going rate is roughly $2,000/month per client.
Or, you can scale to seven figures and beyond and build a true marketing agency with hundreds of clients.
4. Does this side hustle work in 2025?
Yep, Facebook ads have been surprisingly steady for over a decade now. There have been changes over the years, of course, but the reason that Facebook ads continue to perform is that they’re affordable and effective for businesses.
They just… work. Especially for small businesses. You don’t need any crazy data or strategies to run local Facebook ads. You’re really just creating a compelling offer with the business owner and targeting a location around the business.
The copy and image do all of the “filtering”, so you don’t need to do any intense audience targeting based on user interests or demographics. They’re almost like a digital billboard ad that you’d see on the side of the road.
Yes, they’ll typically start with Facebook ads and then maybe layer Google ads in later down the road as they develop their ad strategies over time. Google is a great platform for small businesses as well, but it tends to be much more expensive than Facebook and a higher barrier to entry.
Business owners pay for marketing services for the same reason that they pay for accounting and bookkeeping – they could learn how to do it themselves, but they also have a ton of day to day responsibilities of running their business and providing a great service for their customers.
It’s just easier to pay someone else to handle the ads instead.
So they’ll either dabble with the ads themselves and quickly pivot to outsourcing them, or they’ll start with ad services from the beginning.
6. What types of businesses use Facebook ads?All types of businesses use ads! But when we’re talking about local businesses specifically, we’re looking at service-based businesses primarily. So chiropractors, dentists, gyms, home service providers (think plumbing or HVAC companies), restaurants, real estate agents, etc.
Facebook ads work best for businesses that have established products and services and are looking to grow their client base in their local area.
The types of businesses I’d probably avoid are ones that are selling inexpensive items and trying to do a lot of volume. So for example, a local boutique that specializes in clothes, candles, etc., tends to struggle making the ads profitable enough to keep running them long-term.
You want to stick with “bread and butter” businesses that have a simple business model.
Absolutely! We’ve taught thousands of people how to run Facebook ads since 2018, and the vast majority of them had never touched a Facebook ad in their life.
8. Or, do they need to be really techy?No, Facebook ads are much more “plug and play” than something like web development where you need to have an understanding of coding and design.
The most important part of Facebook ads isn’t really running the ads themselves, but helping business owners create a compelling offer that would make a user want to click on the ads and put in their contact information.
So think of a gym that’s running a fat-blasting bootcamp for anyone wanting to lose weight for the summer, or a free cleaning service at a dentist’s office, or even a free appetizer on their first visit to a restaurant in the area.
I understand that the idea of trying to find clients is hands down the most intimidating part of starting this side hustle, which is exactly why we spend so much time on client acquisition strategies in the course.
Luckily there are plenty of simple ways to find clients online, even if you’re an introvert or are brand new to the online business world. We provide training on 9 different ways to get clients using a variety of methods and social media platforms. We have effective strategies using Facebook groups, LinkedIn, email, YouTube, and Upwork just to name a few.
All of these methods can be used to find clients without paying for advertising. It just takes some time, effort, and a little courage to put yourself out there. We’ve found that some of our students are very introverted, and some are extroverted, so we made sure to include strategies that will be for all personality types.
Our biggest advice when it comes to client acquisition is to focus on one or two of the strategies that we teach, and then go all in on those.
Our students tend to gravitate to different strategies, but we’ve found that the ones who stay focused and put the work in using the strategies that appeal to them most are the ones that stack multiple clients (assuming they want more than just one).
It’s also important to note that we don’t just give you the strategies and send you out into the world on your own.
We help our students strategize client acquisition in our coaching and support group.
Let’s say you reach out to a business owner and want a little help formulating a response to something they say to you. All you have to do is post your situation in the group, and we will tell you exactly what to say to get their business.
We really do everything we possibly can to help our students get clients, which is a large reason our students have been so successful since we launched it in 2018! And we’ve had over 4,000 students go through the Facebook Side Hustle course.
10. What’s the best way to convince a business owner to hire you if you don’t have experience? Should you offer free or discounted services at first to gain experience?
Our position on this has shifted a bit since we first started teaching this profession in 2018. We used to tell students that they should never work for free.
And that is still true in a sense – we feel that our students should always get a case study or referral/recommendation at a minimum if they decide not to charge for their work initially.
But we found that a lot of students were going out and doing pro-bono work, getting a case study, and then leveraging it to land more clients. So they proved us wrong, in a sense haha.
It really depends on the student – if you aren’t too worried about hearing no a few times, we’d still recommend going out and trying to find a paying client from the beginning.
The key is to be honest – if they ask you about your prior work experience, just tell them the truth. You’re new, but you’ve been trained by true experts in the field and are surrounded by coaches and other students who can help you get results for the client.
The vast majority of our students work with their clients remotely, but some choose to do it in person.
It really just depends on their personality. This is a business model that works well for both introverts and extroverts.
Once you have your clients ads set up, it takes 2-3 hours per week to manage them. And the going rate for Facebook Ad management is $1,500 – $2,000 per month these days, per client. Now I know that sounds like a ton (and it is), but you have to think of this from the business owner’s perspective:
If you could pay someone to give you a steady stream of customers to your business, would you? Especially if the leads were affordable, and you made way more money from the new customers than you were paying for the ad management?
It’s really a no-brainer for a lot of business owners.
The other factor is that while $2,000 is a lot of money, it’s usually not an arm and a leg for an established small business owner. Many times, their rent alone is several thousand dollars per month!
So when you look at the $2,000/month per client we recommend charging from the business owner’s perspective, it makes a lot more sense.
13. What are the biggest challenges of running a Facebook ads business, and how do you overcome them?I’d say the biggest challenge, initially at least, is going out and landing the first client.
Not because the clients aren’t out there, of course, but it just takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there and hear a few “no” answers from business owners.
But once you do it once, it becomes a lot easier to market yourself and grow your business. I’d say we spend 50% or more of our time with newer students helping them get out there and start client acquisition.
Beyond that, it’s figuring out the right kind of clients to work with. We often find that our students will go land their first client, and then start taking any clients they can find.
Which… sounds great! But they’ll often work with “bad fit” clients, who are either difficult to work with or their business model just isn’t great for Facebook ads.
Over time, they learn which clients have red flags in their initial conversations, and which ones will be great. We spend a lot of time with students in that area.
And the last challenge is trying to scale, which is difficult in any business. Once you get to roughly ten clients, you’ll probably need to start hiring some help. There’s a learning curve to hiring talent, and it takes time. It’s a great problem to have though.
Sure! It’s actually a pretty simple process:
Step 1 – Learn how the Facebook/Instagram ad platform works
Step 2 – Learn how to craft a compelling offer for various industries
Step 3 – Learn to create ad campaigns using great copy and images that will catch a user’s attention and make them stop scrolling
Step 4 – Learn to create landing pages to capture lead information for people that are interested in your offer
Step 5 – Start client outreach! We recommend doing this as early as possible
Step 6 – Once you land your client, get paid for the first month upfront (we teach you how to capture payments inside of our course)
Step 7 – Work with your clients on following up with their leads – business owners who respond quickly and communicate with the leads are always going to get the best results
Step 8 – Rinse and repeat with new clients 