How We Got a Surrey Tiffin Service 314 Customer Conversations at $1.05 Each
In five weeks, a $328 Meta ad budget brought Apna Roti Time 314 people asking to order, at an average of $1.05 per conversation. No website, no booking form, no app download. Just an ad, a tap, and a chat that lands directly in the owner’s inbox.
Here’s how we did it, and what any local service business in Metro Vancouver can take from it.
The client and the challenge
Apna Roti Time is a 100% pure-veg Punjabi tiffin service in Surrey, BC. They cook fresh, hand-rolled rotis, dal and sabzi every day and deliver daily tiffins across Surrey.
The food was never the problem. The problem was getting found. Tiffin is a word-of-mouth business, and word of mouth grows slowly. The people who need it most, students and young professionals who just moved here, don’t know anyone to ask yet.
They needed a steady flow of new customers without paying for a website build or a complicated sales funnel first.
What we did
1. We skipped the website and went straight to the conversation. We ran Meta engagement ads with a “Send message” button that opens WhatsApp or Messenger. For a food business, a chat is the shortest path to an order: the customer asks what’s on today’s menu, the owner replies, and the tiffin is booked.
2. We wrote ads in the customer’s own language. Instead of generic “Indian food delivery” copy, every ad spoke to a feeling: missing ghar da khana. We tested three angles:
Hand-rolled rotis: “No shortcuts, no machines”, proof that homemade really means homemade.
No frozen meals: real food made fresh every single day, aimed at students and busy professionals.
Visual-first: a creative that let the food do the talking, with almost no text.
3. We gave people one easy action. Every ad ended with the same ask: DM “ROTI” to order. One word, no forms, no friction.
4. We let Meta find the audience, then watched who responded. We targeted Surrey and let the algorithm learn who was messaging. About two-thirds of ad spend ended up reaching people aged 18 to 34, exactly the students and young workers who need a tiffin most.
The results
From September 22 to October 29, 2026, one campaign delivered:
Metric Result
Ad spend $328.52 CAD
Conversations started 314
Cost per conversation $1.05
People reached 15,915
Times the ads were seen 39,002
Click-through rate 4.92%
For context, a click-through rate around 1% is common on Facebook ads. At 4.92%, people weren’t just scrolling past; they were stopping and tapping.
Here’s how each ad angle performed:
Ad angle Spend (CAD) Conversations Cost per conversation Click-through rate
Hand-rolled rotis $75.37 87 $0.87 4.99%
No frozen meals $131.43 124 $1.06 4.44%
Visual-first $121.72 103 $1.18 5.34%
The hand-rolled roti ad was the cheapest way to start a conversation. “No frozen meals” brought in the most total chats. The visual-first ad earned the most clicks but turned fewer of them into messages.
What local business owners can learn from this
Specific beats generic. “Hand-rolled rotis, no machines” outperformed broad food copy. Your ad should say the one thing only you can say.
Speak your customer’s language, literally. Phrases like ghar da khana did more than any polished tagline. People respond when an ad sounds like them.
A conversation is a lead. You don’t always need a website or landing page to start. For many service businesses, a message is the fastest route to a booking.
Fast replies close the deal. 314 conversations only matter if someone answers them quickly. A lead that waits hours for a reply often orders from someone else. We call this the Response Gap, and closing it is where most of the money is made or lost.
Let the data pick the winner. We ran several angles at once, then put more budget behind the ones bringing chats in cheapest.
Want results like this for your business?
Business Anchor is a Surrey-based digital marketing agency working with local service businesses across Metro Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. We run Meta and Google Ads, create short-form video, build websites, and help you turn more of your leads into paying customers.
If you’re spending on ads, or thinking about starting, let’s look at what’s possible for your business.
Call 672-762-0099, email contact@businessanchor.ca, or visit businessanchor.ca to book a free strategy call.