How Hunter Conley Grew a Pet Waste Business to 700+ Customers on Year-Round Facebook Ads

Who is Hunter Conley, and how big is Fresh Start Pet Waste Removal?

Hunter Conley owns Fresh Start Pet Waste Removal in Georgetown, Texas, a little north of Austin, and runs Rise Ads Marketing, an agency that manages Facebook ads for pet waste companies. He started Fresh Start about two and a half years ago after coming home from work to find his wife, seven or eight months pregnant, picking up after the dog. He figured there had to be a service for it, and was surprised to find there was.

He tracks the growth by his podcast appearances: a little over 350 customers after about a year, around 500 at a year and a half, and more than 700 now. Fresh Start runs six half-wrapped trucks with an office manager and a field manager. Hunter recently moved to Orange County, California, partly to force himself to delegate, and said he went from 20 to 30 hours a week on the business to five or 10.

His marketing background came from Alta Pest Control, which he joined in 2020. He built its marketing department and said it grew to $5.5 million the year he left.

Why are Facebook ads the main channel for a pet waste removal business?

Because most homeowners do not know the service exists, so few of them search for it. Facebook puts the idea in front of people who were not looking. “Whether they’re signing up with me or somebody else, or it’s a spouse seeing my ad and reminding their spouse to go pick up the dog poop, it’s increasing the awareness for the industry,” Hunter said.

When he started with a small budget, he ranked the channels plainly: Facebook first, Google second.

He was clear that ad leads are colder than referrals. Some people fill in the form and change their mind ten seconds later. He compared it to fishing with a net instead of hunting: more volume, and not every catch is a keeper.

How much should a poop scooping company spend on Facebook ads?

About $30 a day, every day. Hunter said less than that may not bring enough leads, and that spending far more does not scale in step. Fresh Start has run at $30 to $60 a day, roughly doubles in the busy season, and has had days at $80 or $100.

The bigger mistake is stopping. He sees owners run ads for a month, pause for two weeks, restart, and decide it did not work. Facebook does not reward that, he said. If the budget is tight, lower the daily spend and keep it running. Some of his best sales days were Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Sundays.

The same goes for seasons. January through April is the spring rush, and then, in his words, “there’s the rest of the year.” Summer is when customers move, have kids home, and cancel. An owner who pauses marketing from May to September is declining the whole time.

What should a pet waste removal Facebook ad look like?

Local, family-owned and real. Early on Hunter clicked on the franchise competitors’ ads so they would keep showing up in his feed, then positioned Fresh Start as the smaller local company with better communication.

What he has used since week one:

• Photos of himself smiling with a bucket and rake. His wife Sam took the first ones.
• Photos of employees posing with the truck. He gives them a gift card for the photo shoot.
• Dogs in the shot whenever they will pose.
• An iPhone and Canva to clean up the photo and add text.

Owners who do not want to be on camera can ask an employee, or a friend in a branded shirt. “The goal is to stop the scroll,” he said. Facebook’s retargeting handles the rest, and some people click on the fifth showing.

What if there is no budget for ads?

Then the free work has to be done at full effort. Hunter grades his own marketing: Facebook an A or A-minus, Google Ads a B or B-minus, everything else a C-minus or D, which is why Fresh Start recently ordered yard signs and flyers.

He described owners two years in with 20 customers who ran Facebook ads for two weeks and last posted six months ago. His list for them: post in every local Facebook group every day, knock on the neighbors’ doors, flyer on weekends, and put the tax refund toward a truck wrap.

What results have Rise Ads Marketing clients seen?

Hunter shared client screenshots and called them best results that depend on the owner working the leads:

• A Longview, Texas company with over 100 customers added 12 in its first month, from 49 leads on less than $1,000 of ad spend.
• An Alabama company that took about 10 months to get its first 13 customers added seven in under a month.
• A client named Kelly signed 52 customers in about 60 days, more than doubling his business, at a $36 acquisition cost.
• A Pennsylvania owner who had 36 customers after more than a year added 36 more in two months and now has over 85.

Rise works with more than a hundred pet waste companies today, he said, and has probably worked with close to 500 in the last year.

What does working with Rise Ads Marketing include?

Five things for one fee, which Hunter said has stayed the same since he started: Facebook ad management, a GoHighLevel account with A2P approval and basic automations set up, sales help from him by email, a 25-minute monthly call with a sales coach, and Review Harvest. His own conversion rate at Fresh Start is 55 percent of qualified leads, and he sends clients scripts and screenshots when they get stuck on an objection.