$1,212 of ad spend, 43 leads, 90 days of data across 3 NSW electrician accounts. Here's what worked, what didn't, and what it means for your trade.
Most articles about Facebook ads for electricians are written by people who have never run one. This isn't that. Over the last 90 days we've been running Meta ad campaigns for three licensed electricians in different parts of New South Wales. Same trade, three different markets, three different campaign goals.
We pulled the numbers straight out of Meta Ads Manager and put them in one table so you can see exactly what an electrician's Facebook ads actually look like in 2026.
Quick note on wording, because it trips a lot of tradies up. "Facebook ads", "Meta ads" and "Instagram ads" all run through the same ad platform. Meta owns both Facebook and Instagram, so when you run Meta ads for electricians you're really just choosing which of those feeds your ad shows in. In our experience the bulk of electrician Facebook leads come from Facebook lead ads specifically, the in-app forms we cover below, with Instagram chipping in a smaller share. So if one agency pitches you "Meta ads for electricians" and another pitches "Facebook ads for electricians", they're describing the same thing.
Quick summary: $1,212.50 in ad spend across the three accounts, 43 form-fill leads, average cost per lead of $28.20, plus 12 Messenger conversations on top.
To respect client privacy, we've labelled the three accounts as A, B and C. Each is a different licensed electrician in a different NSW market. The numbers are unedited.
| Account | Region | Spend | Leads | CPL | Link clicks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Account A | Northern Beaches Sydney | $478.96 | 16 | $29.94 | 164 |
| Account B | Sydney | $526.50 | 12 | $43.88 | 95 |
| Account C | Hunter region (Newcastle) | $207.04 | 15 | $13.80 | 185 |
| Combined | $1,212.50 | 43 | $28.20 avg | 444 | |
That's the headline. Now let's break down each campaign and pull the lessons out of the data.
Account A is a licensed electrician on Sydney's Northern Beaches. The spend was split across two campaign types: lead-form ads (the kind where the prospect fills out their details inside Facebook without leaving the app) and traffic ads sending people to a website page.
The lead-form ads worked. The best campaign generated 7 leads on $191 of spend (CPL of $27.30). A second lead-form campaign brought in 4 more leads at $26.21 each.
The traffic ads underperformed. One ad targeting solar owners spent $85.42 over the period and produced zero form-fill leads. It got 22 link clicks, but those clicks didn't convert. Important lesson there: ad clicks are not leads.
You can read the full Account A story, including the original $69.90 / 4 leads / 11 days launch campaign, in our Connery Electrical case study. Same account, earlier window.
Account B is another Sydney electrician running two campaign types in April: an EV charger lead-form campaign and a switchboard upgrade lead-form campaign.
The EV charger campaign was the standout. It generated 7 leads on $165 of spend at a CPL of $23.59, while the switchboard upgrade campaign brought in 5 leads at a higher $72.27 each.
What stands out about Account B is the cost of impressions. CPM was $33.41, which is 60% higher than Account C up in Newcastle. Sydney is the most competitive ad market in Australia. Every electrician, every renovator, every solar installer is bidding for the same audiences. That bidding war pushes up your cost per impression and your cost per lead.
If you're a Sydney electrician, $40-ish per lead from Facebook is realistic. If anyone tells you they can get you Sydney leads at $10 a pop, they're either lying or running ads to people who don't actually need an electrician.
Account C is the eye-opener. A licensed electrician in the Hunter region around Newcastle launched a single lead-form campaign and pulled 15 leads in 9 days at a cost per lead of $13.80. That's roughly one third of the Sydney CPL.
Why so cheap? Three reasons:
If you're an electrician outside the major capitals, your Facebook ad budget will go a lot further than your Sydney peers'. That's not a competitive disadvantage, it's a structural advantage. Use it.
Same trade, same platform, same year. Newcastle CPL was $13.80. Sydney CPL was $43.88. That's a 218% difference, and the only thing that changed was the postcode of the electrician.
This is worth knowing because most "Facebook ads for tradies" advice online lumps the whole country together with a single number. The reality is that costs vary a lot by city, and even by suburb cluster. If your agency quotes you a generic CPL benchmark without asking where you operate, ask better questions.
Across all three accounts the top spending demographic was men aged 45 to 64. On Account A men 45-54 spent $94, men 55-64 spent $77, and men 65+ spent $73. On Account C men 65+ were the top converting bucket. Women generated some leads but were a much smaller share.
This matches what most tradies see in real life. The person who picks up the phone to book the electrician is often the older male homeowner, the one with the older house and the bigger jobs. Creative for trade ads should reflect that audience: real photos, plain language, large text, no jargon, and definitely no influencer aesthetics.
Across all three accounts, Facebook Feed received 60 to 70% of total ad spend and produced the majority of leads. Instagram Feed and Stories combined came in under 15% of spend. Reels delivered cheap impressions but very few converted leads.
If you're an electrician, don't kill Instagram entirely. Run there for brand awareness and creative testing. But don't expect it to carry the campaign. For trade services targeting older homeowners, Facebook Feed is the workhorse. That's where the budget should go.
Account A's biggest single waste was an $85.42 traffic ad that produced zero leads. Lead form ads on the same account at the same time generated 11 leads between them.
Lead forms work because they remove friction. The customer doesn't need to wait for a page to load on a dodgy 4G connection, find a phone number, or type their full address into a contact form. They tap the ad, confirm their pre-filled name, email and phone number, and submit. From scroll to enquiry in 8 seconds.
Traffic ads still have a place. They're useful for awareness, retargeting, and pushing people to a specific landing page. But for an electrician trying to generate enquiries on a small budget, start with lead forms. Every single time.
If you want a single number for what an electrician should expect to pay per Facebook lead in NSW in 2026, it's roughly $20 to $45 depending on your market. Newcastle and the regions sit at the lower end. Sydney sits at the higher end. The Northern Beaches sit in between. For how this compares across other trades and lead sources, see our full guide to cost per lead for Sydney tradies.
What about all those agencies promising $5 leads? Two possibilities. Either they're counting "leads" that aren't really leads (Page Likes, video views, low-intent clicks), or they're showing you a one-week snapshot that won't hold up over a real campaign.
One job pays for it all. Even at the most expensive CPL of $43.88, an electrician winning 1 in 5 of those leads turns 5 leads ($219 spend) into 1 paying job. Most electrical jobs in Sydney are worth $300 to $5,000+. The maths is not even close to break-even, it's strongly profitable.
If you're an electrician (or any tradie) thinking about Facebook ads, here's the short version of what these three campaigns suggest:
For more on what Facebook ads actually cost across different trades, see our breakdown of how much Facebook ads cost for tradies in Sydney.
Short answer: yes, as long as you measure it on jobs won, not likes. Halfway through 2026 the pattern in our accounts hasn't changed. Lead-form campaigns on Facebook Feed are still the cheapest, most reliable way for a licensed electrician to turn a small daily budget into booked jobs. Costs have crept up a little in the most competitive Sydney suburbs, which is normal as more trades pile in, but a tight offer and a clear local audience still land leads inside the first week.
The one thing that has shifted is patience. With more electricians advertising, the accounts that win are the ones that let a campaign run long enough to learn, then refresh the creative before it goes stale rather than switching it off in a panic. If you're weighing up where your first marketing dollar should go, it's worth reading our comparison of Google Ads vs Facebook ads for a small business, because the right answer depends on whether people are already searching for your service or you need to put it in front of them.
Yes. Facebook lead ads are the single best-performing format for electricians in Australia in our accounts. A Facebook lead ad shows a form inside the app with the person's name, email and phone number already filled in, so they enquire in a couple of taps without leaving Facebook. Across three NSW electrician campaigns, every lead we counted came from a Facebook lead ad, at an average cost of $28.20 per lead. The alternative, sending people to a website, cost more, and one traffic ad spent $85.42 without a single enquiry. If you're an Australian electrician starting on a small budget, Facebook lead ads are where to begin.
Electricians get Facebook leads by running lead-form ads to homeowners in their service area, usually men aged 45 and up, with a clear single offer like EV charger installation, a switchboard upgrade or a safety check. The ad sits in the Facebook Feed, the homeowner taps it, confirms their pre-filled contact details and submits, and that enquiry lands in the electrician's phone within seconds. The electrician then calls the lead back quickly, ideally the same day. Speed to call is the difference between a booked job and a cold lead. That whole loop behind electrician Facebook leads runs on budgets as small as $15 to $25 a day.
Across three NSW electrician campaigns in 2026, cost per lead ranged from $13.80 in Newcastle to $43.88 in Sydney, averaging $28.20. Total spend was $1,212 over 90 days for 43 form-fill leads plus 12 messaging conversations. Most electricians should budget $300 to $600 a month in ad spend to start, plus a fee for someone to set up and run the campaigns.
Facebook Feed is where the leads come from. Across the three campaigns, Facebook Feed took 60 to 70% of spend and produced most of the leads, while Instagram Feed and Stories combined stayed under 15%. Reels delivered cheap impressions but very few converted. Don't switch Instagram off, but don't expect it to carry a trade campaign aimed at older homeowners.
Lead form ads win on cost per lead. In our three campaigns every counted lead came from a lead form, while one traffic ad spent $85.42 without producing a single enquiry. Lead forms work because they remove friction: no waiting for a page to load, no hunting for a phone number, just a pre-filled form and a submit button.
Most campaigns start producing leads inside the first week. The Newcastle campaign generated 15 leads in nine days. Facebook's algorithm needs about a week of data to learn which audiences and placements convert, so the first 7 to 10 days are a learning phase and real optimisation kicks in from week two. Pulling the plug after five days because you have one lead is the most common mistake we see.
Yes, as long as you measure it on jobs won rather than likes or clicks. Halfway through 2026 the pattern is unchanged: lead-form campaigns on Facebook Feed are still the cheapest, most reliable way for a licensed electrician to turn a small daily budget into booked jobs. Costs have crept up in the most competitive Sydney suburbs, but a tight offer aimed at a clear local audience still lands leads within the first week.
This is exactly what we do day to day: Facebook and Instagram ads for electricians, run for licensed sparkies across Sydney, the Northern Beaches, Newcastle, and beyond. Every campaign starts with a free quote and a plain English plan, no lock-in contract, no jargon.
If you want everything handled in one bundle (ads, Google Business Profile, SEO, monthly reporting, and review management) our Monthly Growth Retainer is the best value option. We work directly with the founder, not an account manager, and you can see exactly what we're spending and what's working at any time.
Related services
How Electricians Get More Leads · Instagram Ads for Electricians · Facebook Ads for Tradies (Complete Guide) · Facebook Ads for Electricians · Case Study: Connery Electrical · Cost Per Lead for Sydney Tradies · Are Google Ads worth it for tradies? · Google Ads for Electricians · Monthly Growth Retainer
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