For pet businesses, social media is not just for cute puppy videos. It is a digital storefront. However, targeting "everyone who likes dogs" in a 20km radius is a fast way to burn through your budget on people who will never walk through your door.
On Meta (Facebook and Instagram), the rules for location targeting have become broader. The default setting now captures not just residents, but also visitors. To win locally, you need to go deeper than a simple city search.
Here is an advanced guide to mastering hyper-local targeting on Meta, with real-world examples for pet businesses.
1. Mastering the "Living In vs. Recently In" Dilemma
As of 2026, Meta's default (and often only) option is targeting "People living in or recently in this location." This is a major hurdle for local service providers.
The Problem
You own a boutique dog hotel near a major highway or airport. With the default setting, your ad for "Long-Term Boarding" could be shown to a family driving through on a road trip. They might love your ad, but they live 500km away and need a boarding kennel in their hometown, not yours. You pay for the impression, but get zero chance of a booking.
The Solution: Interest Layering
Since you cannot turn off the "recently in" part, you must qualify the user with interests that suggest a permanent, local need. A tourist might be interested in "Dogs," but a local resident is more likely to be interested in "Dog Daycare," "Pet Grooming," or specific local pet supply chains like "Petbarn."
By layering these specific interests on top of your location targeting, you effectively filter out the passing traffic and keep your ads in front of people who actually need local pet services.
2. Strategic Pin-Dropping and Exclusion Zones
For a dog walker or a small neighbourhood vet, typing in "Sydney" is far too broad. The Drop Pin feature is your best friend for hyper-local targeting, allowing radius sizes as small as 1 mile (1.6km).
Example: The Competitor Approach
Let's say there is a large chain pet store 3km away. You can drop a pin directly on their location with a tight 1-mile radius. Run an ad with copy like: "Discover hand-baked, healthy goodies just down the road at [Your Shop Name]." This puts your alternative directly in front of pet owners who are actively shopping in that area.
Example: The Lifestyle Target
You are a mobile dog trainer. Drop a pin on the most popular local dog park for a Saturday morning ad schedule. Your ad copy could be: "Recall not quite there yet? Book a session with [Your Name] today!" You are targeting behaviour and location simultaneously.
Example: The "No-Go" Zone
You offer mobile grooming but refuse to cross a toll bridge due to traffic. You can target your wider radius, then drop a second pin on the other side of the bridge and select Exclude for that specific area. This ensures your ad spend does not leak into territories you cannot service.
3. Layering "Pet Parent" Behaviours and Life Events
Location gets you in the neighbourhood; behavioural targeting finds the right house. Do not just target broad interests. Use Meta's data to find people in specific stages of pet ownership.
The Puppy Boom
Target the "New Pet" Life Event. This is valuable for puppy preschools, vets offering vaccination packages, or trainers. Your ad needs to be timely and solution-oriented: "New puppy in the house? Start them off right with our 4-week socialisation course in [Suburb Name]."
The Premium Buyer
You sell high-end, organic dog food. Layer your location targeting with interests in premium brands like "Royal Canin," "Orijen," or "Hills Science Diet." This helps you filter for owners who have demonstrated a willingness to spend more on their pet's nutrition.
4. Leveraging Your Own Data: Custom and Lookalike Audiences
Your existing customer data is your most valuable targeting asset. Use it to build highly qualified local audiences.
The Re-Engagement Campaign
Export a list of clients who have not booked a grooming appointment in the last 6 months. Upload this as a Custom Audience. Create an ad just for them with a compelling reason to return. This is far more cost-effective than cold-targeting new people.
The Local "Clone"
Take your list of top-spending clients and create a 1% Lookalike Audience. Meta's AI will find people with similar online behaviours to your best customers. Crucially, you must then layer your strict local geography on top of this Lookalike audience to ensure you are only finding these "clones" within your service area.
The Missing Piece: Know Your Geography Before You Spend
Here is where most advertising advice stops: "set up your targeting, launch your ads, optimise." But there is a step before all of that which most pet business owners skip.
You need to know where your money already comes from.
If 70% of your revenue comes from three suburbs, your ad budget should probably be concentrated there (for retention campaigns) or in the adjacent suburbs (for growth campaigns). If there is a high-value suburb where your average appointment value is $120 but you only have two clients there, that is a suburb worth targeting.
This kind of geographic intelligence is exactly what we built into Petboost's Reporting & Intelligence. The Map view breaks your business data down by suburb, showing you:
- Revenue by suburb: where your money actually comes from
- Customer density: where your clients are concentrated
- High-value pockets: suburbs with high average appointment values but low volume (growth opportunities)
- Boundary overlays: visualise your service area with suburb-level detail
- Weekday patterns: which suburbs generate revenue on which days (useful for scheduling ad campaigns)
None of this requires a marketing agency or expensive analytics tools. It is data your business already generates through bookings, payments, and customer addresses. Petboost simply surfaces it in a way that is actionable.
The connection to the 8 signs of a healthy pet business: a healthy business has one system of record where bookings, payments, customers, and pet data live together. When everything is unified, your geographic data becomes a strategic asset. You cannot extract these insights if your bookings are in one tool, payments in another, and customer addresses in a spreadsheet.
Checklist for Your Next Meta Campaign
Before you launch, run through this list:
- Have you layered interests? Do not rely on location alone. Add pet-service-specific interests to filter out tourists
- Have you set exclusion zones? Block the suburbs you cannot or will not service
- Have you tried pin-dropping? Target specific locations like competitor stores, dog parks, or vet clinics
- Are you using life events? "New Pet" is one of the most valuable targeting options for pet businesses
- Have you uploaded a Custom Audience? Your existing client list is your most cost-effective targeting tool
- Have you checked your data first? Look at where your revenue actually comes from before deciding where to spend
Start With Your Data
The best-performing local ads do not start with creative briefs or audience research. They start with understanding your business geography.
If you are running a pet business and want to see exactly where your clients are, which suburbs are producing revenue, and where the untapped opportunities sit, Petboost gives you that visibility as part of a platform purpose-built for pet businesses. No credit card required for your free trial at business.petboost.com/register.
Related Petboost Features
- Self-Service Booking: Make it easy for new clients to book themselves after seeing your ad
- Pro Automations: Automate the follow-up after a new client books from an ad
- Reporting and Insights: Use Geographic Intelligence to see which suburbs your revenue comes from
- Prepaid Packages: Convert ad-driven first visits into long-term package customers
Frequently Asked Questions
How is Meta ad targeting different from Google Ads for pet businesses?
Google Ads targets people actively searching for services (high intent). Meta targets people based on location, interests, and behaviours (awareness and consideration). For pet businesses, Google captures people looking for a groomer right now, while Meta helps you get in front of pet owners before they start searching. Both work best when informed by your actual business data. See our Google Ads geo-targeting guide for the search side.
Can I target only people who live in my area on Facebook?
As of 2026, Meta's default location targeting includes both residents and recent visitors. You cannot fully separate them. The workaround is interest layering: add specific pet-service interests (like "Dog Daycare" or "Pet Grooming") on top of your location targeting to filter out people passing through who are unlikely to need local pet services.
What is a Custom Audience and how do pet businesses use it?
A Custom Audience is a list of people you upload to Meta (such as your existing client email list). Meta matches these against its users, allowing you to run ads specifically to your existing clients. Pet businesses use this for re-engagement campaigns (targeting lapsed clients) and as the basis for Lookalike Audiences.
What is a Lookalike Audience?
A Lookalike Audience is Meta's AI finding people who resemble your best customers. You upload a source audience (e.g., your top-spending clients) and Meta finds people with similar online behaviours. Crucially, you must layer your local geography on top to ensure the "lookalikes" are in your service area.
How do I know which suburbs to target with Meta ads?
Use your booking data. Petboost's Geographic Intelligence breaks down your revenue by suburb, showing which areas produce the most bookings and where you have growth opportunities. Target your top suburbs for retention campaigns and adjacent "gap" suburbs for growth campaigns.
What is pin-dropping in Meta Ads Manager?
Pin-dropping lets you place a precise location pin on a map and set a radius around it (as small as 1 mile). This is more precise than city-level targeting. Pet businesses use it to target specific locations like competitor stores, popular dog parks, or vet clinics.
Should I run Facebook ads or Instagram ads for my pet business?
Both are managed through Meta Ads Manager. Instagram tends to perform well for visual content (grooming transformations, happy dogs at daycare) while Facebook works well for longer-form content and targeting older demographics. Most pet businesses benefit from running on both platforms simultaneously and letting Meta optimise delivery.
