The Modern Front Door: How Paid Ads Fill Your Empty Seats

Here is a hard truth most of us feel but rarely say out loud: personal invitation, still the number one driver of attendance, has a ceiling. It only reaches as far as the people your members already know. When you are trying to break 100 and your congregation is small, that ceiling feels awfully low.

This is exactly where paid digital advertising earns its keep. It is the one lever that puts your church in front of strangers in your community who are actively looking for hope, and it does so at a price a small church can actually afford. Think of it as the modern front door. Where invitation runs out, a paid pipeline keeps a steady stream of new visitors coming.

Two honest truths before we go further. First, organic reach is dying. Facebook now shows your posts to only a fraction of your followers unless you pay. Second, ads only work when paired with fast human follow-up. The ad gets you the inquiry. A five-minute response is what turns that inquiry into someone sitting in a chair on Sunday.

The simplest path: let someone else run it

If you are a pastor with no time to learn ad platforms (which is most of us), the fastest route to results is NetMinistry's done-for-you visitor advertising. NetMinistry, the company behind 100 Strong, has served more than 60,000 churches over 25-plus years. Their service handles ad creation, audience targeting, the landing pages that capture visitor information, and the reporting. Your only job is to follow up with the inquiries that come in. This is the primary recommendation in the 100 Strong strategy. The do-it-yourself guidance below is for churches that prefer to steer their own campaigns.

The two ad engines every church should use

Google Ad Grant. Eligible churches can receive $10,000 a month in free search advertising. This meets people at the exact moment they type "church near me" or "Sunday services in [your city]." Search begins roughly 53% of these journeys, so this is free fuel. Use it first. One caveat: tax-exempt status alone is not enough. A church needs its own IRS 501(c)(3) determination letter or documented coverage under a denomination's group exemption. NetMinistry can set up and manage the Grant for you.

Meta (Facebook and Instagram) ads. With roughly 3.8 billion users, lookalike audiences, and precise local targeting, Meta is where you tell emotional, visual stories. This is your paid reach engine.

Understand the funnel

The path a real church runs is simple: an ad leads to a landing page ("Plan Your Visit" or "I'm New"), which offers a three-field form (name, email, phone), which triggers fast personal follow-up, which produces a first visit. The ad's only job is the inquiry. The system does the rest.

Put this into practice, free

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Here is a sobering number: 96% of website visitors leave without doing anything. Retargeting is your second chance. A cheap video-view audience lets you follow up with people who already showed interest, and retargeting can lift conversions by up to 150%.

The numbers, told honestly

Let me give you realistic benchmarks so you plan with your eyes open:

• Cost per "Plan Your Visit" inquiry: $3 to $10, with strong campaigns around $7.67.
• Cost per actual first-time visitor: roughly $20 to $33.
• A $500 per month Meta budget yields about 30 to 50 inquiries a month, which becomes 15 to 25 visitors.
• Inquiry to first-time visitor: about 50% with good, fast follow-up. It drops to 20% when follow-up is weak.
• Recommended starting budget: $10 to $20 a day ($300 to $600 a month).

A word of correction. Older optimistic claims suggested a $500 budget could produce 450 inquiries a month. That is not realistic. Plan on 30 to 50. The good news is that inquiry-to-visitor conversion is closer to 50% than 20% when your follow-up is quick.

Your seven-step playbook

1. Get the free money first. Apply for the Google Ad Grant.
2. Build one great landing page. Not your homepage. A dedicated page with a single call to action, message matched to your ad, mobile-first, real photos or video, and a three-field form that answers first-visit fears (what to wear, how long, parking, kids' check-in).
3. Run Meta lead ads with short pastor-fronted video. Video crushes static images. One church saw cost per lead fall from $170 to $19 by switching to video. Start at $10 to $20 a day. Use Ads Manager, not the "boost" button, which buys vanity metrics rather than visitors.
4. Target locally and by life-stage. Use a 5 to 15 mile radius and lean on "recently moved" life events (which peak May through September). Since Meta removed religion as a targeting category, use proxy interests and broad AI audiences instead. Frame your ads as "come visit" rather than a cause, so you do not trip the Special Ad Category that disables radius and age targeting.
5. Retarget the 96%. Build a video-view audience and follow up with testimonials and an invite.
6. Follow up in minutes, not days. Route every inquiry to a real person for a five-minute call or text. Replying within five minutes makes a lead 21 times more likely to qualify.
7. Measure the whole funnel and optimize monthly. Scale spend only as your capacity to welcome and follow up grows.

Where this matters most

If you are heading toward 25 or 50, this is your season for ads. You have few members to invite, so a paid pipeline fills the gap. Start the Google Grant plus a $150 to $300 per month Meta video campaign 6 to 8 weeks before any launch or relaunch, aiming to gather a list of 50-plus interested people before your big day. As you push toward 75 and 100, keep the ads running. Do not turn inward as you grow. The pipeline that carried you here is the one that keeps you climbing.

Your challenge this week

Write a 15 to 30 second vertical video of yourself speaking to the camera with one message: "You're welcome here." No production crew needed, just your phone and your face. That single clip is the seed of your first ad and your warmest front door yet.