East of Tampa / Services / Facebook ads
Facebook and Instagram ads for east Hillsborough businesses
We run Meta ads on your own ad account for local service businesses, restaurants and shops. The goal is leads and calls, not likes.
Who this is for out here
This is built for the businesses you drive past every day. Pressure washers and pool companies working out of Valrico and Lithia. Dentists and orthodontists in the plazas on Brandon Boulevard. Restaurants on SR 60 and Bloomingdale Avenue. Contractors and realtors who cover Riverview and FishHawk from a truck. If your customer lives within twenty minutes of you and finds things on their phone, Meta ads are usually the fastest way to put an offer in front of them.
The market here is not one town. People who live off Big Bend Road shop in Brandon. People in FishHawk drive up FishHawk Boulevard to get anywhere. A business on US 301 in Riverview pulls from Apollo Beach and Ruskin. We set targeting around where your customers actually live, which is usually wider than the town on your sign. Our Brandon marketing page and Riverview marketing page go deeper on how each of those markets behaves.
What we do each month
We run Facebook and Instagram ads on your own ad account. You own the account, the audiences and the data. Here is the work:
- Offer and angle. We figure out what you are actually selling in the ad. "Call us for a quote" is not an offer. A specific service, a clear price or a reason to act this week is.
- Creative. Images, short video and ad copy written for people out here, not stock photos of a family in Ohio.
- Lead forms and tracking. Instant forms or a landing page, plus the pixel set up so we know which ads produce leads and which just produce clicks.
- Weekly tuning. We kill what is not working, move budget to what is, and refresh creative before it wears out.
- A plain report. Spend, leads, cost per lead. No vanity numbers.
One thing we will be blunt about: ads produce leads, and you produce customers. A lead called back in ten minutes and a lead called back tomorrow are two different leads. If your phone process is broken, we will say so.
What it costs
Ads management is priced on your ad spend, so we quote it on a short call instead of printing a number that would be wrong for half the people reading this. Your ad spend goes straight to Meta on your own card. We do not mark it up.
If you want to reach our audience instead of, or alongside, paid ads, every East of Tampa package is $500 a month with a three month minimum, then month to month. Those are listed on the for businesses page.
The advantage of also being the local media
Most agencies only have the ad account. We also publish East of Tampa: a free newsletter that goes out Tuesday, Friday and Sunday to about 5,000 local subscribers, with open rates that run consistently above 30 percent. We have roughly 12,000 Facebook followers and 5,000 Instagram followers across our accounts, plus Local Sports, which covers high school sports across the county.
That means we see what people in east Hillsborough actually stop and read every week. We know which towns comment, which topics get shared and what tone works here. That shows up in your ads. And if it makes sense, your business can also show up in front of our audience directly, which paid ads alone cannot do.
Proof
For one local service client, we rebuilt the campaign from the offer up. Cost per lead dropped from $10.70 to $5.69 in six days. Same business, same area, nearly half the cost for every lead. We do not name clients without their permission, but you can see more of our work on the case studies page.
We are a husband and wife team in FishHawk. John Plumstead is a West Point graduate who served in Afghanistan and left the Army in 2022 as a major. We are veteran owned, and we are members of the Brandon Riverview Chamber and the Valrico FishHawk Chamber. We live here, so we answer for our work in person.
Talk to us
If you want to know whether Facebook and Instagram ads make sense for your business, call John at 813-495-2136 or fill out the form below. We will look at what you are running now, tell you what we would change, and give you a straight quote. You can also read more about the rest of our agency work on the agency page.
Questions owners ask
How much does Facebook ads management cost?
Our management fee depends on how much you plan to spend on ads, so we quote it after a short call. Your ad spend is paid directly to Meta on your own card. Call 813-495-2136 and we will give you a straight number.
Do I need to give you my Facebook login?
No. We work inside your own Meta Business account as a partner, so you keep ownership of the ad account, the pixel and every lead. If we ever part ways, everything stays with you.
How fast will I see leads?
Most campaigns start getting real data within the first week. In one rebuild for a local service client, cost per lead dropped from $10.70 to $5.69 in six days. That is one result, not a promise, but the first week tells you a lot.
Do Facebook ads work for a local service business in Brandon or Riverview?
They work well when the offer is clear and someone calls the lead back fast. Home services, health and wellness, real estate and local retail are all good fits. If nobody is going to answer the leads, we will tell you before you spend a dollar.
What is the difference between your ads and your $500 advertising package?
The $500 a month package puts your business in front of our own East of Tampa audience. Meta ads management runs paid campaigns on your own Facebook and Instagram ad account.
Request
Ask about Facebook ads
Tell us what you sell and where. John calls you back, usually the same day.
Facebook ads by town
- Facebook ads in BrandonBrandon is the most expensive place to advertise in east Hillsborough. The fix is not spending more. It is aiming at the right people and calling every lead back fast.
- Facebook ads in FishHawkFishHawk is the easiest audience in Hillsborough County to reach and the quickest to get tired of you. Ads here need fresh creative and a business that backs them up.
- Facebook ads in Plant CityPlant City has its own calendar and its own pride. Ads that run flat all month and sound like Tampa miss both.
- Facebook ads in RiverviewRiverview keeps filling with new households that have not picked a plumber, a dentist or a pizza place yet. Meta ads are how you reach them first.
- Facebook ads in ValricoValrico customers stay a long time and send their neighbors. Ads here should be built to start that relationship, not just close one sale.
Read before you hire anyone
All guides- Direct Mail (EDDM) vs Facebook Ads for Local BusinessesA postcard in every mailbox on a route, or an ad in every feed in a ZIP code. Both reach the same neighborhoods. Here is how they differ and which one we would test first.
- Do You Need a Website If You Have a Google Business Profile?Your Google profile gets you found. Your website is what closes the deal and what you actually own. Here is when one is enough and when you need both.
- Facebook Ads for Local Businesses: What the First Month Looks LikeHow to set a test budget from your own numbers, what to expect in the first 30 days, and the mistakes that waste most local ad spend.
- Facebook Ads vs Google Ads for a Local BusinessOne catches people who are already searching. The other puts you in front of people who were not looking yet. Here is how we decide which one an east Hillsborough business should start with.
- How to Advertise a Local Business in Brandon, FLEight real ways to get in front of customers in Brandon and the towns around it, what each one is good for, what it takes, and when to skip it.
- 12 Local Marketing Ideas for Businesses in Brandon, Riverview and ValricoMost of these cost nothing but time. A few are things we sell, and we will say so when they come up. All of them work better out here than generic advice written for anywhere.
- Hiring a Marketing Agency vs a Freelancer vs Doing It YourselfWe are an agency, and we will still tell you that doing it yourself is the right call for a lot of small businesses out here. Here is how to tell which one you are.
- Newsletter Advertising vs Facebook Ads for Local BusinessesWe sell both, so we have no reason to pretend one always wins. Here is how we decide which one a Brandon or Riverview business should buy first.
- Sponsoring High School Sports in Hillsborough CountyFriday night is the one thing every family east of Tampa pays attention to. Here is what it actually means to put your business name on a school's coverage, and when it is the wrong buy.
What else we do
See the work- AI searchMore people out here are asking AI tools who to call. Nobody controls what those tools say, but they draw on signals you can fix. We fix them.
- Business listingsYour business is listed in more places than you think, and some of them are wrong. We find them, fix them and make your name, address and phone match everywhere.
- Google Business ProfileWhen someone out here searches for what you do, the map results come first. We keep your Google Business Profile complete, active and consistent so you have a real shot at showing up there.
- Local SEOLocal SEO is how people out here find you when they search for what you do. We get your website, your Google profile and your directory listings telling Google the same story.
- RetargetingMost people do not call the first time they find you. Retargeting keeps your business in front of the people who already visited your site or watched your video, so you are the one they remember.
- ReviewsPeople out here read your reviews before they call. We help you get new ones every month, answer every one, and handle the bad ones without making it worse.
- Short-form videoReels, TikTok and YouTube Shorts are where local attention is right now. We make short vertical video every day for our own pages and for clients, and we can make it for you.
- Social mediaWe run your Facebook and Instagram so you can run your business. $500 a month, built by people who post to this market every day.
- Website designWe build and run websites for local businesses out here. Real photos, real reviews, your phone number where people can tap it, and nothing that slows the page down.
- Advertise to our audienceNewsletter, Local Sports and the directory. $500 a month.