My Artificial Grass Client Is Having Their Best October in 11 Years. Here’s What We Did Differently Going Into Winter.

Most trade businesses expect October to tail off.

The evenings draw in. The garden stops being a priority. Homeowners start thinking about Christmas, not the lawn.

So when an artificial grass installer I work with in Essex and Herts told me last week they’re on track for their best October in 11 years, I wanted to write down exactly why.

Not because we did anything magic.

Because nearly every step is something you can check in your own account this week.

The numbers behind it

Here’s where the leads came from. All of this is from their Facebook and Instagram lead ads, run in Ads Manager on a £500 a month lead budget.

• August: 48 enquiries at £10.43 each
• September: 46 enquiries at £10.39 each

That’s 94 enquiries in two months from just under £980 of ad spend.

And here’s the bit most people miss.

Those August and September enquiries are October’s installs.

Artificial grass has a lead time. Someone enquires, you survey, you quote, they think about it, they book. That takes weeks.

So a strong October in the diary was built in late summer. Not in October itself.

If you only start advertising when the diary goes quiet, you’re already six weeks late.

What we changed going into winter

1. We stopped running summer ads in autumn

In summer, artificial grass sells itself. Sun, barbecues, kids playing outside.

In October, nobody’s thinking about sitting on the lawn.

So the winter ads talk about winter problems:

• No mud. No muddy paws through the house.
• No mess. No churned-up lawn by February.
• Dogs, kids and family. Real gardens that get used all year.

Same product. Different reason to buy it.

If your ads in October look the same as your ads in June, that’s the first thing I’d change.

2. We leaned into Reels

Across this account, Reels beat every other format. Time-lapses, transformations, before and afters. Video wins.

The newest winter Reel went live on 12 October. Its first three enquiries came in at around £8 each. Some of the older ads were costing between £13 and £30 a lead over the same weeks.

That gap is why I keep making new creative. Ads get tired. A fresh Reel resets the clock.

If you’ve got install footage sitting on your phone, it’s worth more in an ad than in your camera roll.

3. We brought back last winter’s winners

Some of the best ads in this account ran last winter and the winter before.

So we revived them.

One lesson though. One of those old ads had an offer that ended on 31 January 2026. We changed the date to 2027, which meant re-captioning it, and it lost the likes and comments it had built up.

Social proof on an ad is worth something. Before you edit a winning ad, ask whether you’d be better leaving it alone and building a new one next to it.

4. We let Meta mix the creative

Ads Manager now lets you put Reels, images, carousels and several versions of your wording into one ad. Meta then works out which version to show to which person.

You don’t have to guess which ad your customer wants to see. You give it options and let the data decide.

You can’t do any of that from the Boost button, by the way. More on that below.

5. We set a ceiling and checked it every day

For this account, the limit is £30 a lead. If an ad goes above it, it gets switched off or changed.

We also watch click-through rate. Anything over 1% is healthy. One ad dropped to 0.70%, so it went. The best Reel this week is running at 1.60%.

And we keep an eye on frequency, which is how many times the same person sees your ad. Too low and they forget you. Too high and they get sick of you.

None of this is clever. It’s just checking every day instead of once a month.

6. The client tells Meta which leads were good

This is the step most trade businesses skip.

Meta has a Leads Centre where every enquiry from your ads lands. Each week, my client moves leads out of the “intake” stage as they’re contacted, quoted and booked.

Why does that matter?

Because it tells Meta which leads were real. Meta then goes and finds more people like them.

If nobody updates it, Meta only knows that someone filled in a form. It has no idea whether they booked a £6,000 lawn or never picked up the phone.

Your ads can only get better at finding customers if you tell them who the customers were.

7. We gave people something to look at while they wait

When someone fills in the form, the thank-you screen sends them to a gallery of finished gardens.

They’ve just asked for a quote. They’re interested. Showing them twenty finished gardens while they wait for your call keeps that interest warm.

It costs nothing to set up.

8. We’re already planning February

Schools are a big market for this business. And the best time to lay artificial grass at a school is February half term, when the children are off.

So the schools campaign goes live in the third week of November and runs to 16 December. That gives schools time to get a quote, get it approved and book the install before February.

Same lesson as before. The leads you need in February have to be found in November.

What we’re not doing: panicking about budget

Plenty of trade businesses slash their ad budget in November because “it’s quiet”.

Then January is dead, and they wonder why.

My client wants to look at the end-of-October numbers before deciding anything about November, December and January. That’s the right call. Decide with the numbers in front of you, not on a gut feeling about the weather.

And I never switch ads off at Christmas. I wrote about why in January is quiet every year. Here’s what I do in October so it isn’t.

Boosting posts isn’t the same thing

Quick one, because I hear it every week.

“I’ve tried Facebook ads. I boosted a post and got nothing.”

Boosting a post isn’t running Meta Ads.

Everything in this blog was built in Ads Manager, inside a Business Portfolio. That’s where you get proper lead forms with qualifying questions, several ads tested against each other, retargeting and lead tracking.

The Boost button on your post, or in Meta Business Suite, gives you a simplified version. It’s quick and it’s fine for getting a nice job seen locally. But most people boosting are paying Meta to find likes and comments.

Likes don’t fill the diary.

How to check your own account this week

If you’re running Facebook ads, or someone is running them for you, here’s what I’d look at:

1. Open Ads Manager, not the Boost button. If all your “ads” are boosted posts, that’s your answer.
2. Check your campaign objective. For enquiries it should be Leads, not Engagement or Traffic.
3. Look at your cost per lead for August and September. That’s what’s feeding your winter diary.
4. Look at your ads. Are they still talking about summer? Change them.
5. Count your Reels. If you’ve got none running, film one this week.
6. Open Leads Centre. Are your leads being moved along as they’re quoted and booked? If not, start today.
7. Check your thank-you screen. Does it send people anywhere useful?
8. Put a date in the diary for November. Whatever your slow months are, the ads for them start two to three months earlier.

Three questions to ask whoever runs your ads

• “What’s my cost per lead this month, and how many of those leads turned into jobs?”
• “What’s our winter creative, and when did it go live?”
• “What are we doing now for January and February?”

If you get a confident answer to all three, brilliant.

If you get a monthly PDF full of reach and impressions instead, let’s talk.

Want a second pair of eyes on your ads?

I run Meta Ads and Google Ads for trade businesses across the UK. Landscapers, artificial grass installers, window fitters, driveway and paving companies.

I have availability from November.

Book a quick call and I’ll tell you honestly whether your ads are doing their job.