Getting East Auckland, Bay of Plenty and Manawatu in front of local business owners, with a local broker doing the talking.
We run one nationwide campaign. Inside it sit four videos, one for each branch broker plus one for the rest of the country, and two supporting ads that build trust and answer the common objections.
Every branch gets its own broker on camera, talking to their own area. Facebook works out that the Manawatu video belongs in front of Manawatu people, because that is exactly what its targeting is now built to do.
The one thing worth reading twice: running separate campaigns for each region would need a cost per lead of $5.60 in Manawatu to work. One combined campaign works at anything under $33.60.
That is the whole media budget for the launch. It is not split between branches, it is not held back in reserve, and it all works as one pot. The next section explains why that matters more than anything else in this document.
Facebook's targeting is a learning system. Before it can reliably find the right people it needs to see roughly 50 leads every week from a campaign. Below that it is guessing, costs stay high, and results swing about week to week.
This is not a hurdle you clear once. It is a level we have to hold. If lead volume drops under 50 in any week, the campaign slides backwards and performance gets less predictable until it recovers.
$240 a day buys us that 50 comfortably, as long as leads come in under about $33.60 each. For this kind of advertising we expect to land well under that, and we will confirm the real number in the first fortnight.
A separate campaign for East Auckland, Bay of Plenty and Manawatu sounds like the tidier answer. The problem is that each campaign needs its own 50 leads a week. Splitting into four does not split the requirement, it multiplies it.
Broken down by branch, the same budget split four ways gives each one a target it cannot realistically hit:
| If we split it | Per day | Per week | Cost per lead needed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nationwide | $100 | $700 | $14.00 |
| East Auckland | $50 | $350 | $7.00 |
| Bay of Plenty | $50 | $350 | $7.00 |
| Manawatu | $40 | $280 | $5.60 |
Manawatu would need leads at $5.60 each. For commercial insurance in New Zealand that is not a stretch target, it is not achievable. Three of the four campaigns would underperform from the first day and stay there.
To make four separate campaigns work properly at a realistic lead cost, the budget would need to be around $715 a day. Combined into one, $240 a day does the job.
There is a second cost too. Separate regional campaigns end up bidding against each other for the same people, so we would be paying twice to compete with ourselves.
This is the important bit, and it is why one campaign does not mean a generic campaign.
The branch commitments are about local ads running in each area. They do not require separate campaigns or separate budget lines. So we meet them the way the platform is designed to be used: with local creative rather than with structure.
Rather than a pile of ads competing with each other, six ads work as a sequence. Four introduce the problem with a local face. Two do the closing.
| Ad | Type | Its job |
|---|---|---|
| East Auckland broker | Video | Name a gap the business owner has not thought about, and offer a quick check. Local face, local area. |
| Bay of Plenty broker | Video | |
| Manawatu broker | Video | |
| Nationwide broker | Video | |
| Proof | Image | A real client outcome. Answers "does this actually work for people like me?" |
| Objections | Image | Answers "my broker's fine", "renewal isn't till March", "online is cheaper". |
The two supporting ads are not region specific on purpose. By the time someone sees them they have already met their local broker, so those ads work for all four areas.
Everything the brokers say is about what Gerrard's does, never about what a policy covers. That keeps us on the right side of the line and it is the more persuasive pitch anyway.
All four brokers are in one place this week, so we film everything then. There is no second shoot in the plan, which means we capture not just the launch ads but the refreshed versions we will need at weeks eight and twelve.
Wardrobe stays the same across every take for each broker, because openings get matched to the longer pieces months later. A full script and shot list is ready to go.
| What | Why | When |
|---|---|---|
| Name for the check "The 3-Minute Cover Check", "The Cover Gap Check", or "The Claim-Readiness Check" |
Every broker says it on camera, so it has to be agreed before we roll. | Before the shoot |
| Broker availability confirmed | All four, same location, same day. | Before the shoot |
| Two or three client outcomes | Real results with real numbers for the proof ad. We will not make these up, so without them that ad does not run. | Before launch |
| Confirm the branch commitments | That they require localised ads in each area, rather than separate budgets. Our reading is the former. | Before launch |
| When | What we do |
|---|---|
| Week 1 | All six ads go live together, then we leave them alone. Changing anything early resets Facebook's learning and costs us weeks. |
| Week 3 | Check each branch's ad is reaching its own region. Read only, no changes. |
| Week 4 | First proper performance review. Turn off anything clearly not working. |
| Week 8 | Refresh with the alternative openings filmed on the day. Fill whatever gap the numbers show. |
| Week 12 | Full review and the decision on increasing spend. If one region has clearly earned it, that is when it gets its own campaign. |
You will get a short update at each of those points, not a monthly report nobody reads.