Meta ads and SMM case study · STL Truckers
Meta ads and social media together: 419 driver applications at $14.14 each
First quarter of 2026
$5,923 in advertising over one quarter. 419 applications from company drivers at $14.14 each, one of the lowest costs per application in our portfolio.
Most carriers buy advertising and leave the account empty. This is what happens when the two are run as one job. Our client is STL Truckers, a carrier in St Charles, Missouri, hiring company drivers. We ran the Meta advertising and the Instagram account together for a quarter. Every figure comes from our own Meta ads account.
What one quarter of Meta ads cost
| Advertising spend | $5,923 |
| Applications | 419 |
| Company solo drivers | 309 |
| Company team drivers | 110 |
| Cost per application | $14.14 |
| Comments and direct messages | 39 |
First quarter of 2026, one Meta ads account. Reported by Meta Ads Manager.
What we ran: Meta ads and social media
Service 1
Meta Ads
Paid advertising on Facebook and Instagram: campaign structure, audiences, creative and lead forms, measured to the application. Hiring ads sit under rules that take most targeting away, and those are covered in the special ad category.
Service 2
SMM
Running the Instagram account: content plan, filming and editing, profile design, stories, highlights, and answering comments and direct messages. Over the quarter the account grew to 457 posts and 25,400 followers. This is the page a driver opens before he decides to apply.
The Instagram account behind the ads
Social media for a trucking company is not a brand exercise. It is the page a driver opens between seeing the advertisement and filling in a form, and it either answers him or it does not.
457 posts and 25,400 followers. Video with the people behind the trucks, hiring posts, driver reviews, answers to the questions drivers ask, and the industry news they follow anyway.
Why social media and Meta ads are one job
An advertisement buys a click. What happens after it is on the account. A driver who already has a job does not apply because a picture looked good. He opens the profile and looks for three things: who you are, what the work pays, and how to reach a human.
On this account the bio answers four of them before he scrolls: OTR company drivers, dry van and reefer, trucks from 2023 to 2026, weekly pay. The highlights hold the rest, in the order he asks them: About us, FAQ, Contact us. The stories carry the hiring terms, the referral bonus and a phone number. None of it is decoration.
Stories and highlight covers. The three questions a driver asks are answered before he has to ask them.
The SLTM methodology splits this into two barriers. The advertisement clears the first one, Be Seen: the driver finds out the company exists and is hiring. The account clears the second, Be Real: he checks whether the company is what the advertisement says it is. Buying only the advertising means paying for the first barrier and failing at the second, with the money already spent.
Why cost per driver application and cost per hire come down
Five things happen when the account is alive behind the advertising, and every one of them shows up in the cost.
The click is already paid for either way
A driver who clicks the ad and then opens the profile costs the same whether the profile is full or empty. If it is empty he leaves and the money is gone. If it answers him, the same budget turns more of the same clicks into applications. That is the cost per driver application falling without spending a dollar more.
Part of the contacts carry no advertising cost at all
This quarter, 28 comments and 11 direct messages, all answered. They are not counted in the 419 and not in the $14.14. They cost nothing on top of what was already spent.
The advertisement can stay short
Pay, equipment, home time and the referral bonus sit in the stories and the highlights. The ad does not have to carry the whole offer, so it can be built to do one thing, get the click from the right driver. Ads that try to explain everything convert worse and cost more per application.
The wrong drivers leave before they apply
A driver who reads the terms on the profile and does not like them never fills in a form. He costs a click, not an application, and he does not waste a recruiter's call. This is the part that moves cost per hire rather than cost per application.
The referral offer runs on the account for free
$500 for bringing in a solo driver, $750 for a team driver, paid a month after the driver is hired. It sits in the feed and in the stories where the current drivers already are. A driver who comes in through a referral carries no advertising cost.
Solo and team drivers
The account hired two kinds of company driver at the same time.
| Audience | Applications | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Company solo drivers | 309 | 74% |
| Company team drivers | 110 | 26% |
Find out what a driver application costs in your market
Tell us how many trucks you need to fill and what you pay now. Pixelco runs advertising and social media for carriers as one job, on the SLTM methodology.
Book a callThe result
One quarter, 419 applications from company drivers at $14.14 each, one of the lowest costs per application in our portfolio.
309 solo and 110 team, filled from the same account at the same time.
STL Truckers seats three drivers for every hundred applications. At $14.14 an application, that puts about $471 of advertising behind every driver who starts. Our flatbed account, advertising without social media behind it, ran at $898 per seated driver.
On top of that, 39 comments and direct messages answered, and an account carrying 457 posts and 25,400 followers for the next driver who checks.
Frequently asked questions
Can I run Meta ads without doing social media?
You can, and it costs more per application. The advertisement gets the driver to look, the account decides whether he applies. If there is nothing to look at, you keep paying for clicks that end on an empty profile.
What does it cost to work with you?
Meta ads are $2,000 a month in service fee, with a minimum advertising budget of $2,000 on top. SMM runs from $1,000 to $2,200 a month, depending on how much filming and editing it takes. Most carriers take both, because that is where the cost per application drops.
How long before the advertising starts bringing driver applications?
On average the first applications land on the fifth working day after the campaign starts. Over this quarter the account ran at $14.14 an application, and at three drivers seated per hundred applications that is about $471 of advertising behind every driver who starts.
Do you only work with carriers hiring company drivers?
No. We run driver recruiting for carriers of every kind, including flatbed and owner-operators, and lead generation for the software and services sold to trucking companies.