440,360 local shoppers reached in July for $1,372.63, for a shopping mall in Abu Dhabi

A shopping mall in Abu Dhabi needed local people to keep coming through its doors, especially at weekends. For the month of July, we ran Meta campaigns that kept the mall in view across its catchment area and gave shoppers specific reasons to visit.

On an ad spend of $1,372.63, the campaigns reached 440,360 local shoppers, at between $1.62 and $1.69 for every 1,000 people reached. Event promotions drew more than 2,066 engagements, and 154 people registered for the mall's events.

At a glance

The client

Our client is a shopping mall and retail entertainment destination in Abu Dhabi. People go there for an outing, not only to shop.

A mall's success is measured in people through the doors. When footfall is strong, existing shops stay and new ones want to join. So the mall's own marketing has one main job: give people who live nearby a reason to visit, and keep the weekends busy.

The way people decide to visit a mall is different from the way they buy a product. There is rarely a single moment of purchase. A family decides where to spend a free afternoon, and the mall that comes to mind, with something worth doing on that day, is the one that wins the visit.

The challenge

The result a mall wants happens offline. Nobody books a visit with a click, so a mall's ads cannot close a sale the way an online shop's ads can. All they can do is make a visit more likely.

A mall also draws from a fixed area. Most of its visitors live within easy driving distance, so an ad shown to someone far outside the city is money spent on a person who will not come.

That is why broad advertising often disappoints for a mall. Wide reach looks impressive in a report, but if much of it lands outside the catchment, it does little for footfall. And a general reminder that the mall exists gives people no particular reason to come this weekend rather than some other time.

The task for July was to keep the mall in front of nearby shoppers at a low cost, through regional awareness and seasonal event promotions, and to turn some of that attention into plans to visit.

What we did

A fence around the catchment

We ran high-reach, geo-fenced awareness campaigns on Meta. Geo-fencing means drawing a boundary on the map and showing ads only to people inside it. The reach went to local shoppers, not to anyone who happened to scroll past.

This keeps every dollar of awareness spend on people who could realistically visit, which is the only audience a mall can use.

Events as the reason to come

Alongside the awareness ads, we ran footfall drivers: student event activations, event registrations and fabric brand promotions. An event gives people a date and a reason to turn up, which a general reminder about the mall cannot do.

Events also give the ads something new to say. Instead of repeating the mall's name, each promotion points to something happening at a particular time.

34 ad sets, each with its own job

The work ran across 34 ad sets. An ad set is a group of ads with its own audience and settings. This meant each promotion could be aimed and judged on its own, instead of sharing one general campaign where the strong and the weak ideas are mixed together.

Registrations as a sign of intent

For events, we asked people to register. A registration is a small commitment: a plan to be at the mall on a certain day. Unlike a vague intention to visit, it can be counted, which makes it a useful signal of whether the ads are working.

The results

These figures do not count visits to the mall itself. What they show is the step before a visit, bought at a low cost. For less than two dollars, the mall reached a thousand local people. Across the month, 722 people visited its profile page and 154 registered for its events.

Read together, the numbers tell a simple story. A large number of nearby shoppers saw the mall, some of them looked further, and a smaller group made a concrete plan to come.

Why it worked

Reach stayed local. A mall gains nothing from being seen outside its catchment. Geo-fencing kept the awareness spend on people who could actually visit, so the reach figures describe potential visitors, not just viewers.

Events made interest countable. Reach and impressions show that people saw the mall. The 2,066+ event engagements and 154 registrations show that some of them acted on it, which is as close to a visit as these figures go.

Cheap reach left room for both. At $1.62 to $1.69 per 1,000 people, one month's budget could pay for wide awareness and specific promotions together, rather than forcing a choice between them.

Keeping spend inside a tight radius also worked for a study-abroad consultancy, and a gadget repair chain in Oman used local campaigns to bring people into its outlets.

Give people a date to come, not just a reminder that you exist.

How to apply this to your business

• Draw your ad map around the area your visitors can easily travel from, and leave everyone else out.
• Give people something specific to come for, such as an event, a promotion or a date in the calendar.
• Ask for a small commitment, like a registration or a booking, so you can count real intent rather than likes.
• Split your promotions into separate ad sets, so you can see which ones people respond to.
• Use low-cost local reach to keep your name familiar, and run it alongside the promotions rather than instead of them.

Questions business owners ask

How can a shopping mall use Meta ads to increase footfall?

Show ads only to people within easy travelling distance, then give them a reason to come on a particular day. In this case, geo-fenced awareness ran alongside event promotions, and over July 154 people registered for the mall's events.

How much does it cost to reach local shoppers on Meta?

In this campaign, reaching 1,000 people cost between $1.62 and $1.69. Over the month, an ad spend of $1,372.63 reached 440,360 local shoppers. Your own cost will depend on your area and your audience.

How do you measure ads when the sale happens in store?

Look for the step just before the visit. Event registrations, event engagements and visits to your profile page all show that people are acting on the ads, even when the visit itself is not counted.

Need more people through your doors? Book a 20-minute call.