What to Expect from Your Social Ads in the First 90 Days 

Running social ads should help your business stay visible — not create more work for you. 

That’s why Thryv Social Ads is built as a fully managed service. Once your campaign is set up, our team handles the strategy, creative, optimization, and reporting so you can stay focused on running your business. 

But great advertising takes time. Social Ads is designed to build awareness, strengthen trust, and keep your business in front of the right audience consistently; not deliver instant results overnight. 

If you’ve recently signed up for Thryv Social Ads, or are considering it, this guide will walk you through what happens next, how your campaign grows over time, and what your monthly reports actually tell you. 

Once you purchase Social Ads, your Thryv team begins building the foundation for your campaign. Because this is a managed service, your role is simple: help us understand your business, provide account access, and review your ad creative. 

From there, we handle the rest.

Pre-Onboarding Preparation 

You’ll receive guidance on what information to have ready, including your social platform logins and any key details about your business goals.  

After your purchase, your Business Advisor prepared your onboarding call to make sure it’s time well spent.  

Here’s what the onboarding process looks like. 

Connect Your Facebook and Instagram Accounts 

Before your ads can run, we’ll need access to your Facebook and Instagram business accounts through Meta.  

This one-time setup allows our Social Team to create, manage, and optimize your campaigns directly inside the platform. 

Having your Facebook and LinkedIn login details ready before onboarding helps make the process faster and smoother. Once access is complete, your campaign can move forward. 

This helps us start strong. 

Strategy and Onboarding Call 

During onboarding, your Customer Success Manager and Business Advisor will learn more about your business and walk you through how the service works. 

This conversation helps us understand: 

• Your ideal customers  
• Your service area  
• Your goals for visibility and engagement  
• What makes your business stand out from competitors  

The stronger the foundation, the stronger the campaign. 

Creative Development and Ad Preview 

After onboarding, our Social Team begins building your first campaign. 

Within a few business days, you’ll receive an email preview of your proposed ads so you can review the messaging, visuals, and overall direction. This is your chance to make sure the campaign feels aligned with your brand. 

If something needs adjustment, your Business Advisor can help communicate feedback to the team. 

Campaign Launch 

Once your review window closes, your campaign moves into launch. 

If revisions were requested, we’ll make those updates before your ads go live. If everything looks good, there’s nothing else you need to do. Your campaign begins running without requiring hands-on management from you. 

This is where long-term success begins. 

Social Ads works best when it has time to learn who responds to your business and how your audience engages with your message. 

The first few months are less about immediate leads and more about building smart momentum. 

Month 1: Building the Foundation 

When your campaign first launches, the platform begins collecting performance data. 

During this early stage, your ads are being shown to different audience segments to identify where the strongest engagement happens. 

You’ll start seeing: 

• Increased Visibility  
• Increased Audience reach  
• Early clicks and engagement activity  

Performance may feel modest at first, and that’s normal. This phase is focused on learning. 

Month 2: Stronger Optimization 

Once enough engagement data is collected, the campaign starts improving. 

Your Social Team reviews what’s working best and helps shift delivery toward stronger-performing audiences and creative. 

This often leads to: 

• Better click-through rates  
• More efficient ad delivery  
• Stronger audience engagement  

This is where your campaign starts becoming more strategic. 

Month 3: More Consistent Performance 

By the third month, your campaign typically has a much clearer picture of who is most likely to engage. This helps improve overall performance and supports stronger long-term visibility. 

You may notice: 

• Higher Click-Through-Rate (CTR) performance  
• More reliable click activity  
• Broader local awareness  
• Better consistency across reporting  

This is where many businesses begin seeing the real value of sustained advertising. 

Beyond 90 Days: Long-Term Growth 

After the initial learning period, your campaign continues to improve through regular optimization and creative refreshes. 

Your best-performing ads receive continued support, while fresh content helps prevent audience fatigue. This is how strong brand presence is built, through consistency over time.

Each month, you’ll receive a report showing how your campaign is performing. These reports are designed to help you understand how your visibility is growing and where your audience is engaging most. 

Here’s what the numbers mean. 

Impressions 

Impressions show how many total times your ad appeared on someone’s screen. 

Think of this as repeat exposure or how often people see your business in their feed. More impressions usually mean stronger brand visibility. 

Reach 

Reach tells you how many individual people saw your ad at least once. Unlike impressions, reach focuses on unique viewers rather than total views.  

This helps show how wide your audience is becoming. 

Why Impressions and Reach Work Together 

It’s normal for impressions to be much higher than reach. 

That means people are seeing your business more than once, which is exactly what helps build familiarity. Most customers need multiple touchpoints before they take action. Repetition builds trust. 

Clicks 

Clicks track how many people interacted with your ad by tapping, clicking, or swiping.  

This tells you your ad created enough interest for someone to want more information. It’s one of the strongest signs your messaging is working. 

Click-Through Rate (CTR) 

CTR measures how often people clicked after seeing your ad. 

This is one of the most valuable numbers in your report because it helps show how relevant and compelling your ad feels to your audience. 

What Strong CTR Looks Like 

• Typical industry average: 1%–1.5%  
• Strong campaign benchmark: 2%  
• Average Thryv Social Ads CTR (April 2026): 2.39%  

If your campaign is above 1.5%, that’s a healthy sign. 

If it reaches 2% or higher, your ads are outperforming many industry standards. 

Early campaigns often improve over time as the platform learns. 

Trend Reporting 

Your monthly report also includes performance trends across several months for: 

• Impressions  
• Reach  
• Clicks  

These charts matter because strong campaigns are built through steady growth, not one standout month. Look for progress, not perfection. 

Performance History Table 

At the bottom of your report, you’ll see a monthly breakdown of your key numbers. 

This gives you a clearer view of how your campaign is improving and helps track momentum over time. It’s often where the bigger picture becomes most obvious. 

This is the most important part to understand. Social Ads is not built as a direct lead-generation product. 

Its purpose is to increase: 

• Brand awareness  
• Visibility in your local market  
• Website traffic  
• Audience familiarity and trust  

That means the goal is not instant phone calls or guaranteed leads. 

Instead, Social Ads helps your business stay visible, so when customers are ready to buy, they remember you first. That visibility creates long-term opportunities. 

If your main goal is immediate lead generation, your Business Advisor can also help you explore Thryv Leads, which is specifically designed for direct lead capture. 

Both products serve different purposes and both can work together.

Your campaign should feel like your business. 

When you receive your ad preview, take time to review: 

• Does the messaging sound like your brand?  
• Are the images a good fit for your audience?  
• Is your offer clear and compelling?  
• Would a different message better reflect your business goals?  

If you’d like updates, simply share your feedback with your Business Advisor. You can also request creative adjustments later — not just during launch. 

In addition, every Social Ads campaign receives regular creative refreshes to keep content current and engaging. Your feedback helps make your campaign stronger.

Strong advertising results rarely happen overnight. They happen when the right people see your business often enough to remember it, trust it, and choose it when the time is right. 

That’s what Thryv Social Ads is built to do. 

From strategy and creative to reporting and optimization, your campaign is managed for you, so you can stay focused on serving your customers. 

If you ever have questions about your campaign, your Thryv Business Advisor is here to help.