Internet Marketing Services
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Search ads answer a question someone has already asked, and most Dallas County search budgets are built around that. Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram) work the other way: they put an offer in front of people who fit a description, whether or not they are looking. That makes the audience the most important decision. In Dallas County, it is also the hardest, because the county is made of cities with different households, different school districts and different habits.
The county is young: the median age is 33.8, residents under 18 are 25.6 percent and residents 65 and older only 11.2 percent. Nearly half of households rent. A quarter of residents were born outside the country, and Spanish is spoken at home by more than a third. No single message, and no single image, reaches all of those households, so we build audiences around the cities and neighborhoods where a business actually operates and write separate creative for each.
Meta Ads for businesses across Dallas County, Texas are not a replacement for search. They suit offers, events, new arrivals and slow weeks. The Google Ads page and the SEO page cover the people who are already looking, and the three together make a plan.
Five audiences
Family offers such as pediatric dentistry, tutoring, child-care, sports, birthday venues and home services land best when matched to the city, because school districts follow the cities: Garland, Richardson and Highland Park each have their own, and Lake Highlands is part of Dallas but mostly in Richardson ISD.
Move-in offers, furniture, cleaning, internet, pest control, fitness and neighborhood restaurants suit people who have just arrived and do not know any business yet. The window is the first month, so ads run short and fast.
Creative in Spanish for the services where it fits: medical and dental offices, salons, insurance, tax preparation, roofing and home repair. We test Spanish and English side by side in the same cities and keep what produces calls.
Southern Methodist University in University Park, the University of Texas at Dallas in Richardson, the University of North Texas at Dallas, the University of Dallas in Irving and Dallas College campuses give clear places to aim restaurants, fitness, housing and service offers at term start.
A smaller group, so campaigns need tight geography and a clear offer. Facebook is often the surface to test first for them, and a phone number should be on the ad.
Markets and school-district lines
Highland Park is its own school district, and most of the town is in it. University Park, home of Southern Methodist University, had 24,954 residents in 2023. A small area with a distinct audience, so a separate ad set.
A large part of northeast Dallas with 99,360 residents listed in 2023, bordering Richardson and Garland. Parents here think of Richardson ISD, not Dallas ISD, so the school line is a better guide than the city name.
Around 119,469 residents in 2020, home to the University of Texas at Dallas, and part of the city is in Collin County.
With 246,018 residents in 2020, one of the largest cities in the county, and the Garland school district is the city's largest employer. A campaign aimed at Garland reaches a whole market, so it can stand alone.
Irving had 256,684 residents in 2020, and Las Colinas holds a convention center and an entertainment district. Offers for business travelers, concerts and dining sit beside family offers.
DeSoto, Cedar Hill, Duncanville and Lancaster, with between 40,000 and 56,000 residents each in 2020, are reached by I-35E, US 67 and I-20. A separate market from the north.
Event calendar
| Event or pattern | When | How a campaign can use it |
|---|---|---|
| State Fair of Texas | Last Friday in September, 24 days | Fair Park drew 2,020,064 visitors in 2025. Food, rideshare, parking and hotels near the fairgrounds can aim ads at those weeks. The Texas-OU game is played at the Cotton Bowl during the fair. |
| Fair Park Fourth | July 4 | The Independence Day celebration at Fair Park suits short offers for food, family services and summer activities in central Dallas. |
| Lone Star Park meeting | Memorial Day | Grand Prairie hosts its Thoroughbred meeting each Memorial Day. Nearby restaurants, hotels and services can run short regional ads. |
| Prairie Lights | Holiday season | A holiday display in Grand Prairie, useful for family and seasonal offers in that city. |
| Las Colinas conventions and concerts | Year round | The Irving Convention Center and the entertainment district bring business visitors and concert crowds, so hotels, dining and rideshare can use steady, short-notice campaigns. |
Building a campaign
A first campaign has one offer, such as a free estimate, a new-patient visit, a seasonal service or an event special, and one place to send people. A phone number or a short form beats a long site.
A city or a few nearby cities, an age range and, where it fits, a language. A campaign that tries to reach the whole county has no message.
Photos and short video, shown on Facebook and Instagram, sized for phones. Creative in English and Spanish is tested in separate ad sets when both audiences matter.
Calls and form fills, not just clicks and likes. We cut what did not work and move the budget to what did.
Creative that fits
The picture and the first line carry the ad, so they have to belong to the market. An ad for a family dentist reaching Lake Highlands should read like it was written for Richardson ISD parents, not for the whole of Dallas County. An ad for a restaurant near Deep Ellum should show the street and the hours that matter on a Friday night. An ad for a roofer in Mesquite should name Mesquite. A generic ad aimed at Dallas County Meta Ads audiences tends to be skipped, and each extra audience and creative adds work, so we keep the first campaign small.
Short video and phone-sized photos work well on both Facebook and Instagram, and a message that offers one clear next step, a call, a booking or a visit, gives people something to do. With a county this large and this varied, we would rather run three small, well-aimed campaigns than one large and vague one.
Honest limits
Meta Ads do not capture urgent searches. A homeowner with a flooded kitchen goes to Google, not to Instagram. We do not promise leads, and the ads work best with an offer and a place to send people. Facebook and Instagram can also be used to remind people who visited the site, but audiences are smaller than they sound once they are narrowed to the cities and ages that matter to one business.
Results also depend on the page behind the ad. If the landing page is slow or the phone is not answered, the ad cannot fix it. The digital marketing page describes the 90-day plan that puts search first and Meta Ads in the second half.
What the work costs
Questions
Management starts at $895 a month for one platform, $1,595 for two and $2,295 for three. There is no setup fee and no contract. Ad spend is separate and goes straight to Meta, and we set a starting range with you after choosing the audience and the cities, so you know what a first test will cost before it starts.
No. Both are bought through Meta, and one campaign can show on both. We often test the placements separately, because the two surfaces can reach different people and we want to see which one earns calls for a given business in a given city, before the budget settles on one.
Sometimes. They are not the first channel for an emergency repair, but they can work for seasonal offers, maintenance plans and reminders after a storm or a heat wave. We usually start such trades on search, using the Google Ads page as the model, and add Meta Ads in the second half of the 90 days.
Yes, through location and interest targeting around the cities and areas where the business operates. With about half of households renting, new arrivals are an important audience across Dallas County. The offer should be short and the window about a month, since people settle in and find their usual businesses quickly.
Yes, for businesses near the event or serving its visitors. The dates are fixed, so the campaign is built backward from them and ends when the event does. A Dallas County restaurant or hotel gets the most from a window of a few days. We describe the location and the dates, and we do not use an event name in ways that suggest a sponsorship or an official partnership.
It can matter a great deal. We test English and Spanish creative in the same cities and keep what produces calls. Where other languages matter to a business, we plan for them only if the business can actually serve customers in them, because an ad that promises service in a language nobody answers in will lose the caller.
By calls, forms and booked jobs, not likes. Each campaign has its own tracked phone number or form, and the monthly report shows which city, audience and ad produced real leads. We look first at two weeks of data, then at a full month, before cutting anything or moving budget.
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Get in Touch
Tell us who you want to reach and where, and we will outline the audience and the offer. Call 610-825-4363 or email hello@getphound.com.