For solo tattoo artists

Meta ads for tattoo artists. More of the right enquiries, less time on Meta.

You keep tattooing. We run the ads, write the copy, manage the spend, and report back monthly. Built for solo artists who want their work seen by the right audience without becoming a marketing manager on the side. You stay an artist, not a content creator.

Apply for a trial
3 to 5xAggregate first-month DM lift. Results vary artist to artist.
1 to 2 hrsYour weekly involvement
From $549NZD/month, plus ad spend

Ad spend reality: $300/month (~$10/day) is the minimum. Most artists run $450 to $600/month ($15 to $20/day) for stronger compounding. Some run more for ultra-tight targeting.

What you get

Everything that touches your ads. Done for you.

  • Style-matched targeting

    People who book your style of work get shown your style of work. Not generic "tattoo enthusiasts." Niche styles often work harder than mainstream because the audience pool is more precise.

  • Creative built from your posts

    We pull from your existing Instagram. Healed pieces, in-progress shots, sleeves, walk-in days. No stock, no AI mockups, no recycled templates.

  • Audience-led campaigns

    Every campaign sits on top of a behaviour-based audience profile we build for you. The campaign objective (DMs, leads, or contact-form submits) is chosen to match how you actually want to handle enquiries. DMs are the fastest path to data. Leads add tracking and higher conversion. We pick what fits.

  • Plain-English monthly reports

    4 to 6 page PDF with what ran, what worked, and what's next. Written for tattoo artists, not finance bros.

  • Guest spot and convention pushes

    Going on a guest spot? We can spin up a short geo-targeted campaign just for that window. Same for conventions, flash days, or pop-ups.

  • Direct line to Tom

    If your campaign needs adjusting, the person who can adjust it is the one you're talking to. No juniors, no PMs.

The full breakdown Every deliverable in the monthly fee
  • Campaign build and ongoing optimisation. Built from your work, tuned weekly against what the data shows. Not set-and-forget.
  • Audience testing and style-matched targeting. Neo-trad fans in Melbourne, blackwork in Berlin, fineline in Auckland. We test, narrow, and rebuild as the campaign learns who's actually engaging.
  • Creative testing across formats. Static, reel, carousel. We run them in parallel and let the data pick what scales.
  • Simple creative edits where the algorithm rewards them. Collage cuts, reel edits, captioned overlays, all using your existing posts. We do not build creatives from scratch. Your work is the selling. A flashy edit can't fix bad content and won't beat good content.
  • Conversion tracking and pixel setup where we control the landing page or the lead form. Two options depending on the campaign direction:
    • A basic tracked landing page that delivers leads straight to your email
    • Instant leads in Meta's Lead Center, prefilled from the user's profile
    We use whichever fits the campaign, you don't have to think about it.
  • Short-burst campaigns for guest spots, conventions, flash days, and pop-ups. Part of the standard offer, not a paid extra. Tell us the dates and the angle, we'll run the push.
  • Monthly performance report. Designed PDF, period-over-period analysis. What ran, what worked, what's next. Plain English.
  • Direct line to Tom. Bonehead's owner and the person actually building your ads. No offloading to cheap help, no juniors, no account exec layer.
  • Quarterly strategy review if you want one. Email, Zoom, phone, whatever works. Not a paid extra.

Booking flow

If your booking flow needs a page, we'll handle it.

Some artists run ads straight to DM. Some need a tracked page in the middle. Some build a longer audience first and only switch to lead forms or contact submits months later. We work out which fits your setup, not which sounds best on a sales page.

If you already have a landing page, depending on the platform (Squarespace, Reap, Jotform, your own site), we can usually integrate tracking directly so leads flow through your existing booking form.

If your current setup won't take tracking, we'll build a separate tracked landing page for the campaign. Lives under our system, designed for one job: turn the ad click into a lead in your inbox.

Not the headline. Just part of the job when it's needed.

From an artist on our roster

"Working with Bonehead has been one of the best decisions of my career."

Tarryn Addlem @tarryn_addlem_tattoo

What happens after you apply

Two weeks of trial. No fee. Then decide.

  1. Week 1: Audit your account. Brief the campaign. Build the first creative wave from your existing posts.
  2. Week 2: Launch. Spend stays low while we learn what's converting. We typically start with DM-led campaigns. They're the quickest, cheapest way to noticeably lift weekly enquiry volume, and they give the algorithm the fastest signal to optimise on.
  3. Weeks 3 and 4: Scale what's working. Kill what isn't. You decide whether to continue past the trial.
  4. Month 2 onwards: Monthly reports, monthly creative refresh. Once DMs are flowing, we can pivot to lead-form ads, contact-form submits, email capture, or a mix. Whatever maps to how you actually like to handle enquiries. DMs aren't always the final goal; for some artists, leads or emails convert better long-term. We test what works for your style.

DM-led first because it's the fastest path to data. Lead-led or email-led second, once the audience has compounded enough to spend that way without burning budget on cold traffic.

After the trial

Your typical month, once we're in flow.

A normal recurring month with Bonehead, from your side, looks like this:

  1. Week 1: Creative pull. We grab fresh posts and reels from your Instagram, brief any new angles, and queue the next round of ad creative. Your involvement: zero unless we need a missing reference.
  2. Mid-month: Optimisation pass. Audiences get tightened or rebuilt based on what's engaging. Underperforming creative gets killed, top performers scale. Your involvement: zero.
  3. End of month: Monthly performance report lands in your inbox. Designed PDF, plain English, what ran, what worked, what's next. Your involvement: 10 to 15 minutes reading it.
  4. Mid-month following: Creative refresh. New batch of ad creative goes live, audiences rotate, retargeting layers get adjusted. Your involvement: zero.
  5. Ongoing: Direct line to Tom on email, Slack, or DM if you want to chat strategy, flag a guest spot, or ask a question. Replies typically within hours, never longer than 24.

Total time on your end across a normal month: roughly 1 to 2 hours, mostly spent reading the report and answering the occasional question. The rest happens in the background.

Read up first

Worth reading before applying.

A note on DMs, leads, and AI chatbots

DMs are valid. Leads are the next step up if you want one.

For around 40 to 50% of our roster, DMs are the long-term answer. They've always handled bookings through Instagram, they don't want the overhead of a CRM or a lead workflow, and a steady lift in weekly DMs is exactly what they want. That's a legitimate end state, not a half-finished setup. We build for it the same way.

For the rest, the campaign matures. Once the audience has compounded and the data is clean enough, we layer in lead-form ads, contact-form submits, or email capture so you get higher-converting enquiries and proper tracking sitting on top of the DM volume. That's the next step up if you want it. Lead ads typically convert at roughly double the rate of DMs, and once leads are tracked, we can start optimising the campaign toward booked tattoos directly. Both setups are valid.

On AI chatbots: we include the basic message automations Meta requires when running engagement-style ads. That's the bare minimum the platform asks for, nothing more. Some agencies push full bot funnels as a way to close DMs fast — useful for walk-in shops in tourist-heavy locations, less useful for artists building a real audience around their style. We're not the right fit if you want bots replying to your DMs in your voice. We are the right fit if you want growth without changing how you currently handle enquiries day to day.

Apply

Ready to talk about your work?

Drop the basics here. We'll come back within 24 hours with next steps, or with "you're not a fit and here's why." No fluff either way.

23 minutes since the last reply.

Honest check before you fill this in

  • You have 6 or more months of work in your Instagram
  • You can commit at least $300 NZD/month on ad spend
  • You're open to running for 3 months if it's working (no contract, just the time the audience needs)

If those don't sound right yet, save us both time and come back when they do.