Your first salon advertising dollars belong where people are not yet looking, not where they already are. In practice that means a small local Meta budget before it means expensive Google clicks, because Meta interrupts the client who is not searching yet, and that is where the volume of new faces lives.
Do not build a fancy ad
The mistake that burns budgets is inventing a slick new ad for a cold audience with a "book now" and no proof. Instead, take the before-and-after post that already did well on its own. It earned attention once with real people, so it will earn it again with a budget behind it. Let the transformation do the selling.
Target tight, send them to book
Set a small radius around your salon, ten to fifteen miles, and the women you actually want. Then send the click to a booking link, not your homepage. A homepage gives her ten choices and a reason to leave. A booking link gives her one thing to do.
Start at ten dollars a day
Three hundred dollars is a month at ten dollars a day, and that is plenty to learn. Watch one number: cost per booking. Not likes, not reach, not clicks. If a booking costs you less than the profit from that client's first visit, you have a machine, and you scale what works. If it does not, you change the offer or the creative before you spend another dollar.
The part most salons skip
Most of the return hides in follow-up. The people who clicked but did not book are your warmest audience, and a simple retargeting ad that shows them a review and a reminder brings a chunk of them back. The first ad gets attention. The follow-up gets the booking.
Prefer it handled for you? See salon advertising that reaches local clients.