Walk into any Fraser Valley business that has been advertising online for a few years and you will usually find the same situation. A Google Ads account someone set up in 2021, a boosted Facebook post here and there, maybe a LinkedIn experiment that nobody remembers approving, and a nagging feeling that there should be a TikTok strategy because a competitor posted a video that did numbers. Every platform insists it deserves a budget. Almost none of them explain when it does not.<\/p>\n
Most local businesses in Abbotsford, Mission, Chilliwack and Langley need two or three paid channels done properly, not six done halfway. The right number depends on where your customers actually spend attention, how they buy, and how much budget you can commit without starving the channels that already work.<\/p>\n
A med spa booking consultations lives and dies on Google search and Meta. A packaging supplier selling to food producers belongs on LinkedIn and almost nowhere else. A restaurant can fill weekday tables with Meta offers while TikTok builds the lineup on weekends. None of these businesses benefits from spreading the same budget across every platform that offers an ads manager.<\/p>\n
We treat every channel like a job applicant. It gets an interview, a trial period with a sized test, and a performance review on real numbers. A platform earns a permanent place in your budget when it produces enquiries or bookings at a cost that makes sense for your margins, not when it produces impressions, reach or any other metric that cannot pay your rent.<\/p>\n
The test budget matters here. A channel needs enough spend to produce a readable result, which is why testing six platforms with a tiny budget each tells you nothing, while testing two with a committed budget tells you everything.<\/p>\n
Start with intent. Are your customers searching for what you sell, or do they need to be introduced to it? Searchers belong to Google and increasingly Bing, where the same local queries often cost a fraction of the click price. Browsers belong to Meta and TikTok, where strong local creative stops the scroll. Decision makers and candidates belong to LinkedIn, where expensive clicks only make sense for deals in the thousands or salaried hires.<\/p>\n
Then look at your sales math. A channel that produces leads at forty dollars each is a bargain for a dental clinic and a disaster for a pizza shop. Your average transaction value and customer lifetime decide what a channel is allowed to cost before it starts.<\/p>\n
Finally, be honest about creative capacity. TikTok without regular native style video is a parked account. Meta without fresh local photos recycles itself into fatigue. If you cannot feed a channel, do not buy it.<\/p>\n
When each platform is managed by a different vendor, every monthly report grades its own homework. The Google agency celebrates clicks, the social freelancer celebrates engagement, and nobody tells you which channel actually bought your last twenty customers for less. The budget conversation becomes a negotiation between vendors instead of a decision based on evidence.<\/p>\n