Get social proof content to ~20% of your mix
Target: 2–3 customer-facing posts a month on Instagram. Testimonial reels, voice-notes, before/afters, delivery reactions. The single cheapest lever on your CPM before you've spent a pound.
Ecosystem Readiness Report
You're ready for ads.
Now let's see if your channels can carry them.
A bespoke review of The Forge Kitchen's Instagram and Facebook. We've spent time with your channels, measured them against the brands we work with internally and the wider category you sit in, and this is the honest answer to: "If I turned ads on tomorrow, what would land well, and what would get amplified for the wrong reasons?"
02
01
Section One
Executive snapshot
The headline before the detail. You've got the budget to run ads, and your Instagram is performing above the benchmark for an account your size. Facebook is a different story. It's almost dormant, and right now it would be a drag on anything you tried to run through it. This report walks you through where both channels stand, what's already working, what would get in the way of paid performance, and the specific things to fix before you launch.
Instagram · @theforgekitchen
Your primary channel
Followers2,847
Posts (90 days)34
Posting cadence~11 / month
Engagement rate3.1%
Avg. likes per post76
Avg. reel views2,100
Facebook · The Forge Kitchen
Your secondary channel
Page followers612
Posts (90 days)9
Posting cadence~3 / month
Engagement rate0.8%
Avg. reactions per post4
Avg. comments per post1
Readiness confirmation
Yes, your business is in a position to run ads.
You reported £15–30k monthly revenue, a 40–60% profit margin, and £1.5–2k you're comfortable deploying into ads each month. On those numbers, paid media is a reasonable addition to your mix, and your budget is enough for a proper 60-day test window, which is what we'd want before making any judgement on whether the channel's viable for your business. The real question isn't can you run ads, it's whether your Instagram and Facebook are set up to carry them. That's what the rest of this report answers.
VERDICT · Affordability: cleared. Channel readiness: one green (Instagram), one red (Facebook). Detail overleaf.
Your numbers
Monthly revenue£15–30k
Profit margin40–60%
Avg. customer value£85
Ad budget comfort£1.5–2k
Main sales channelWebsite + DMs
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Section Two
The channel readiness scorecard
Three things decide whether your socials are set up to support ads: how your profiles introduce you, how your content is performing, and how much trust is visible to someone landing cold on your page. An ad that hits any of these weak spots just spends money amplifying the gap. Here's where you stand today.
01
Lane One
Profile & positioning
Close, small fixes needed
- Instagram bio is clear but under-uses SEO keywords (meal prep, Leeds, delivery)
- No pinned posts on Instagram. The first three are Meta's "pitch slot" for you
- Facebook cover photo and intro are out of date and still reference 2024 pricing
- Visual identity is consistent across both channels, which is genuinely worth noting
02
Lane Two
Content performance
Ready on Instagram
- IG ER 3.1%, above benchmark for sub-5k accounts in your category
- Posting cadence on Instagram is consistent (11 posts/month for 9+ months)
- Reel views average 2,100, comfortably ahead of accounts your size
- Facebook performance is weak (0.8% ER). See Lane Three & recommendations
03
Lane Three
Social proof & trust signals
Gap, fix before launch
- Only 6% of IG content is customer-facing (testimonials, stories, reviews)
- No highlight reel on Instagram for reviews / wins / FAQs
- Facebook has zero social proof posts in the last 90 days
- Meta's algorithm uses trust signals to lower CPM, and this is the cheapest lever available
Engagement rate vs. category benchmarks
Where you stand
Benchmarks compiled from ~200 UK small-business food/wellness accounts audited by Base Brands, Q4 2025 – Q1 2026.
Take-away
+41%
Your Instagram ER sits 41% above the category average. That's strong, and strong enough that ads retargeting your profile visitors should work. Your Facebook ER is roughly half the category average, and would actively drag paid performance down if traffic landed there.
- Reels · food prep58%
- Reels · recipe/how-to22%
- Carousels · education14%
- Customer / social proof6%
03.1
Top five · Instagram
What's earning you the engagement
| Post | Format | Views | Likes | ER |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sunday prep: 12 meals in 90 mins Theme: efficiency / systems | Reel | 11,240 | 202 | 8.1% |
| The £3 lunch myth Theme: education / cost | Carousel | — | 165 | 6.6% |
| What I eat on a 60-hour week Theme: relatable / lifestyle | Reel | 5,980 | 128 | 5.2% |
| 3 high-protein breakfasts under 400 cal Theme: recipe / utility | Reel | 4,420 | 104 | 4.3% |
| Client Sarah's 8-week result Theme: social proof | Carousel | — | 118 | 5.0% |
Notice the one customer-facing post in the top 5 (row 5). It hit 5.0% ER, comfortably above your account average, despite being the format you post least. Scale the volume of this content type and it quietly becomes your best ad-amplifier.
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Section Four
What's working, and what's missing
What's workingPlay this harder
- Systems / efficiency reels (IG)Your "X meals in Y minutes" framing is your most scroll-stopping format. Informative, visual, a natural save. You've posted 4 of these in 90 days, and you could comfortably do 4 a month.
- Cost-led education carousels (IG)The £3 lunch myth landed because it answered a prospect objection (meal prep is expensive) directly. More of this, especially "is this worth it?" content.
- Authored, personal POV (IG captions)Your voice is one of your strongest assets. It's informal, confident, doesn't try too hard. Meta's algorithm notices watch-time, and so do humans.
- Posting consistency on Instagram11 posts/month for nine months is the bit most brands can't deliver. It's the foundation everything else sits on, so don't let paid ads slow this down.
What's missingFix before launch
- Customer/social proof content6% of your IG mix is customer-facing. We'd want ~20% before paid spend turns on. Testimonial reels, transformation carousels, voice-note feedback screenshots. All low-effort, all high-impact.
- Facebook is essentially dormant9 posts in 90 days and 0.8% ER. If you're going to run ads through Meta, Facebook will be a traffic touchpoint, and it needs to at minimum mirror your Instagram.
- No pinned / highlight contentNew visitors to your IG profile see a mix, not a pitch. Three pinned posts (offer, social proof, founder) and a set of highlights would immediately make your profile sell harder.
- Facebook page basics are out of dateCover image, bio, pricing references all need a refresh. Small, fast fixes.
05
Section Five
Priority recommendations
Ordered by impact-to-effort ratio. All channel-focused, and nothing here needs a developer. The first three are the ones we'd want done before you spend a single pound on Meta. The last two can happen in parallel with your ad launch.
01
Urgent
02
Pin three posts on Instagram
One offer-led, one social proof, one founder/story. Make the top of your grid do the selling for any cold traffic from ads.
Urgent
03
Revive Facebook to a minimum-viable mirror
Update the cover image, bio, and pricing references. Cross-post your top IG reels twice a week. FB doesn't need to be a hero. It just needs to not be a liability when ads point traffic there.
Urgent
04
Build out Instagram highlights
Four covers: Reviews, Menu, Delivery areas, FAQs. Fifteen-minute job that turns your profile into a small sales page for every new visitor.
High
05
Tighten Instagram bio SEO
Add keywords a cold scroller would search: "Meal prep", "Leeds", "delivery". Keeps you discoverable beyond the feed.
Medium
06
What this means for your ad spend
Ads amplify what your channels already do. If they're weak, amplification is wasted.
We don't believe in throwing money at Meta without the organic foundation underneath it. Your Instagram and Facebook are what a cold lead lands on when your ads send them there. They're the bit that builds trust, answers the silent objections, and earns the engagement signals that lower your CPM. Paid traffic that lands on weak channels doesn't convert; it just shows more people how far you've got to go.
Our read: give yourself 30 days to ship priorities one through three. Then run ads. You'll spend less, you'll convert warmer, and the people you acquire will stay with you longer than if you'd launched today.
Next step
Want to walk through this together?
Book a free 30-minute call with Callum. He'll walk you through the report, answer questions on the recommendations, and if there's a fit, map out what running ads for The Forge Kitchen would actually look like. No pressure, no obligation.
Book your free call with Callum → Usual response within one working day.
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The mix is strong on product, weak on proof.
Nearly 80% of your Instagram content is you-at-the-bench: food prep, recipes, how-tos. It's genuinely your strongest suit. The two highest-performing posts in the window are both prep reels, and view counts on this format sit well above the category norm. But only 6% of your content is customer-facing (testimonials, transformation stories, voice-of-customer clips, delivery/unboxing moments). For ads, that ratio is where cost-per-acquisition gets expensive. Meta's algorithm uses social proof to lower your CPM; without it, you're bidding against brands that have it.
What this means: your content can carry the weight of an ad launch, but before you turn spend on, we'd want the proof layer built up to roughly 20% of your mix. That's the single biggest lever for cheaper ads here.