Facebook and Instagram ads for a moving company
Google catches the person who already picked a move date. Meta reaches them three to six weeks earlier, while the house is still listed and nobody has called a mover yet. For a business this seasonal, that head start is worth more than it is in most trades.
The creative that works is filmed on a phone. A crew wrapping a dresser in moving blankets. A piano coming down a stairwell. A time lapse of a two bedroom loading in forty seconds. Polished agency video underperforms this consistently, because the buyer is looking for evidence you will not break their things.
Targeting is the other half. Likely-to-move audiences, recent home buyer behaviors, a radius around new construction, plus retargeting anyone who hit your quote page and did not finish. Budgets start at $20 to $40 a day and leads land between $12 and $45. They close lower than search leads because the person was not shopping, so they need a call inside five minutes.
Two weeks in, working means a cost per lead you can name, a retargeting audience finally large enough to use, and at least one creative you can scale into peak season.