JBDM - Digital Ads + Reporting

10/03/2026

Running ads or boosting your posts?

Check this setting.

I see too many examples of businesses spending money reaching people outside the area they serve.

Often the cause is this small checkbox: “Reach more people likely to respond.”

It sounds helpful, but it allows Facebook to show your ad to people outside your selected location if it thinks they’re interested in that area.

This can make sense for large national e-commerce brands or tourism businesses.

But for local service-based businesses, it's of little to no value.

The result is money spent reaching people who aren't likely to become customers.

This can be particularly annoying if you're running Get Messages ads and are constantly having to reply to people asking where your business is.

If your business serves a specific area or your ideal customers are a short 5-20 minute drive away and not a roadtrip away then it’s worth checking this setting and considering turning it off so your ads stay focused on people within your service area.

This setting can be found when selecting your location targeting and can be edited at the Ad Set level of your campaign in Ads Manager.

If you're concerned your ad settings don't reflect your target audience or if you’d like a second opinion on your ad settings, I’m always happy to take a quick look. I don't charge for this, my key goal is reducing wasted ad spend.

02/03/2026

The first week of the month is always my busiest time preparing reports covering ad spend and web activity from the previous month 📈

This way business owners know how much they've spent, how many times their ads have appeared and have a whole lot of other metrics and visual graphs to better understand their social media performance and overall online presence.

Having more data available means you can make better decisions and my PDF reports can easily be shared with others on your team and are a lot cleaner and more customisable than sharing messy screenshots back and forth.

If you'd like to better understand your own online presence and have more transparency around your ad spend get in touch to discuss my reporting options.

Visit https://www.jbdm.co.nz/reporting/

27/02/2026

Understanding your web traffic is a critical part of understanding your overall online presence.

There are free tools from Google that give you data and insights that can help with decisions around your digital marketing decisions.

I'm offering free report set up for Google Analytics and Google Search Console until April 1st. See more in the blog below and read til the end for an email template you can pass on to your web developer to ensure these tools are set up on your site.

Google Analytics provides insights into your web visitors which is essential for providing benchmarks for your online presence and measuring any digital marketing efforts against, particularly for tho

24/02/2026

Reply to your Google reviews!

This is an easy win for businesses not already doing it. It signals to Google that you’re active and responsive which can help your Google Business rankings.

It also shows you genuinely appreciate feedback, which can encourage others to leave a review too.

Claiming great customer service is one thing. Your reviews and your replies are the public proof to back this up.

No recent reviews to respond to? Set aside some time to think about how you can change that. Which recent customers could you ask?

Need a hand with this, or have questions about your online presence? Get in touch. I’m always happy to help 😊

16/02/2026

Social media isn't for everyone which is totally understandable.

However having a page for your business is an important part of your overall online presence and even if you're not on Facebook you can bet that the majority of your customers and competitors will be.

If you know anyone who prefers to be 'offline' (or would describe themselves as technologically challenged) wanting support to get started or be doing more than what are let them know help is available.

I've helped many businesses set up a page from scratch and aim to make it all as simple and affordable as possible.

Facebook isn't for everyone - I get it! However you don't want your dislike for a platform to be the reason for losing out on potential new leads.

10/02/2026

The way people search the internet is changing fast but don't let the AI hype distract you from the basics.

Things every business owner can do is make sure essential information about their business is obvious such as their location /service area and their key product or service offering.

It also pays to consider creating and sharing content that answers questions people have or offers a solution to someone's problem rather than just describing what you do.

What I’m focusing on is making it really clear what I want to be known for then making sure it shows up consistently on my website, socials and page titles.

If you'd like insights into what people are searching for in your industry then Google Search Console is a great free tool for this. It shows what people are already typing in to find you and how well your website is ranking for those searches. Ask your web developer to check this is set up on your website.

They're not for everyone but blogs can be a great way to share more information on your website about a specific topic to increase your chances of appearing in search results or AI recommendations. For those in the B2B space, LinkedIn articles can be used for the same purposes.

Whether it's creating a custom URL for a page, sharing a new update to your Google Business Profile or measuring your website traffic and page views I can help you make progress and understand your options with much of what I recommend being things you can action yourself at no cost.

If you know your online presence needs some attention but you're not sure where to start get in touch for a free chat.

28/01/2026

If you're struggling to come up with new social media posts all the time the good news is that you don't have to be posting every other day to have a strong social media presence.

Advertising is the easy way to get what content you do have in front of your target audience at scale, approximately 20,000-50,000 people for every $100 spent.

Consistency is key when it comes to marketing and putting the time and effort into creating one strong ad campaign which you can turn on and off or increase the budget for as needed can free up your time for more important business tasks.

More in the blog below...

People love to hate Facebook Ads. No matter what your opinion is on them, they're a helpful tool for marketing your business when used well and I strongly believe every business and organisation...

12/01/2026

I think we all do!

Unfortunately Facebook can be a bit of an echo chamber and posting more often usually only reaches your most engaged followers again and again rather than reaching potential new customers/clients.

Running ads can help...

I offer quarterly Facebook Ads campaigns to increase your online reach and ensure you’re consistently reaching potential new customers every day of the month with minimal time and effort.

My services are ideal for service-based business owners who don’t enjoy the social media side of marketing but understand the necessity of getting in front of people, consistently.

Quarterly management is designed for business owners who don’t need to be changing their ad creative each month and therefore don’t need to be paying a monthly ad management.

This includes ad creation, management and reporting. Reporting includes data from Google Analytics, Google Business Profile, Instagram and LinkedIn (if applicable) to provide an overview of your online presence beyond just Facebook.

My Facebook Ads management starts from $395+GST + from $200 ad spend (billed directly from Meta) per quarter.

Get in touch to discuss if this is a good match for your goals and budget.

Contact [email protected] or DM the page for more 😊

21/11/2025

What do you want to be known for?

I spent the morning with Renee from Human Stories at her Personal Branding Workshop 🦓

It's always helpful to set aside time to reflect on this, especially so in a workshop setting with others who are self-employed and are quite 'dependent' on our personal brand.

It's easy to dismiss this stuff as superficial but there are deep questions to ask yourself that have benefits beyond your professional career and self-promotion.

With the increased adoption of AI generated content it's never been more important to consider your personal brand and being authentic, whatever that looks like for you - "human connection is the heart of effective marketing" was one of the key notes I made, it's hard to outsource that to a machine.

Looking forward to doing more internal work on this and applying it as I redesign my website and some of my marketing materials over the summer break.

19/11/2025

It depends on how you're boosting your posts, what posts you are boosting and how you'd define wasting money but the majority of the time the answer is yes.

Sharing posts on your page to people who have already chosen to follow you and promoting content to people who may not know who you are or what you do requires two different approaches.

Boosting is often an afterthought and not all posts make a great first impression.

Business owners are also often opting for Facebook's default settings which means your boosted posts are showing to everyone 18+ across NZ without any targeting and you're paying primarily for engagement and vanity metrics.

From some data I've seen, local service-based small businesses will often find up to 80% of their ad budget is being spent on people outside of their service area because they haven't specified their target audience.

The other thing missing from many boosted posts is a call-to-action. Make it obvious how people can learn more and what action they should take to get one step closer to becoming a paying customer or client. This could be visiting your website or calling your team.

The alternative to Boosting is running intentional, targeted ads through the Ads Manager platform which gives you more options.

If you'd like a second opinion before you boost a post or have any questions on getting started with advertising on Facebook feel free to DM me or check out my website to read some of my blogs on the topic.

This is a good one to get started 👇

https://www.jasonbenbow.co.nz/blog/is-boosting-facebook-posts-worth-it

11/11/2025

Want to reach more of your potential customers/clients on social media?

Service-based businesses can use Facebook Ads to effectively reach people at scale within their service area and keep their business top of mind within their local community.

Very few ad platforms give you such control over your targeting or such a definitive figure on how many times your ads have been seen.

Learn more below or get in touch with any questions.😊

Want to reach more people across the Manawatū? It's easy with Facebook Ads location targeting.