Your studio first,
then the ads.

Part of it, yes. The page that turns a click into a booked class, the tracking that ties each sign-up to the ad that caused it, and the text that goes out the minute someone asks a question are the same machinery for a dance school and a barbell gym. Who the ads talk to, what they say and what ends up on camera come from your studio.

Watch the offer. If a marketer brings a discount before they know your class sizes and what a family is worth to you over a season, that offer came from their last client. A full season of fees for one kid is a very different budget from a single drop-in, and the ads should be sized to the one you sell. I went through the other signs of a template, and how to spot one on the first call, in does a marketing company use the same plan for every business.

Yes, before anything launches. You fill in an intake that asks about your best member or family ever, what makes someone start looking for a class, why people hesitate, what you've tried before and how it went, and how many more people your schedule can hold. Then we get on an onboarding call and pin down who the ads are talking to.

That call ends with the buyer in plain words, something like parents in Oakville with a six-year-old who needs somewhere to put her energy on a Tuesday, or adults who stopped going to a big-box gym and want a coach who knows their name. It covers the schedule too. If the 5:30 class has a waitlist and Saturday mornings are half empty, the ads should be selling Saturday.

About six to eight weeks before the intake, plus the month it takes me to build. For September classes, that means a call with me in June and ads running by mid-July, because plenty of parents sign up for fall over the summer. For January, it's a call in October and ads live by mid-November, with November and December spent pre-selling January spots.

Camps run earlier. Parents planning July childcare often book in the spring, so summer camp ads belong in March and April. Launching the week registration opens means paying for the platform's learning during your most valuable weeks, which is the same mistake a landscaper makes by starting ads on the first warm Saturday.

Show the parent their kid's Tuesday night. That means the room, the teacher, a real class in progress, where to park and how pickup works, with the price and the schedule on the page so nobody has to call to find out. A parent is buying for their kid and for their own week, so the drive and the time slot count almost as much as the class does.

You approve every clip before it runs, and the ads go to parents inside the distance a family would drive for a class, never to the kids themselves.

Reply within minutes, then keep following up until they book or tell you no. Someone asking about a first class at 9 p.m. has often messaged a couple of other studios the same night, and the one that answers first with times and a booking link tends to get the family. A reply the next afternoon mostly reaches someone who has already picked.

On packages with the follow-up system, every question gets a text back in seconds with your class times and a booking link, a reminder goes out before the first class, and anyone who goes quiet gets followed up until they book or say no. Your intro class is your product, so its price and format stay your call. I'll tell you what I'd test.

When I checked 149 GTA home-service websites in October 2026, 92 had a contact form and no word on when you'd hear back. I haven't run that count on studios. So check your own contact page before assuming yours is different, and if you want the reasoning, speed to lead and the cost of a missed call cover what slow replies cost, with the count itself in the GTA lead-handling study.

Gyms with rolling memberships should run ads all year at a low floor and push harder before January and September. For studios that sell a fixed term, I'd go heavy for six to ten weeks before each intake, then drop to a smaller budget that keeps people asking about mid-term spots and camps.

Shutting ads off completely costs you. When they come back on, the platform starts learning over again, and you pay for those first weeks a second time. I recommend no less than $50 a day while ads are running, which is $1,500 a month, and my fee is separate (the packages are on what you get).

I film around the schedule you already run, and you see every clip before it runs.

If your package doesn't include a shoot day, I send your coaches a shot list and build the ads from their phone video. Phone video is fine. What sells a class is a coach and members in your room, and a phone in a coach's hand gets that.