Low Cost Competitor Plan

As the largest preferred supplier of marketing to Anytime Fitness, we work with club teams every month who have a new or emerging fitness brand opening up nearby. Budget 24/7 gyms, boutique studios, the latest franchise concept: the brands change, but what works in response is surprisingly consistent.

Our team can walk you through this plan in full for your club. Just reach out at the bottom of the page. Or, if you’d prefer to browse our insights first, enjoy the read.

Here’s what we’re seeing work well across paid digital when clubs go head to head with other brands.

01 · Where results really come from

Stop fiddling with the settings

When results dip, the instinct is to open Ads Manager and start adjusting audiences, budgets and bid strategies. Those things matter, but far less than most people think.

In our playbook, creative carries 70% of performance. Settings carry the other 30%. Settings scale a good ad. They can’t rescue a forgettable one.

02 · How targeting works now

Meta now reads your ads before it shows them

From late 2024, Meta began rolling out a new engine called Andromeda. Every time someone opens Facebook or Instagram, it scans tens of millions of ads, reads each one’s image, words and offer, then shortlists the few that suit that person. All of that happens in a fraction of a second, before the auction even starts.

That doesn’t make ad set targeting redundant. Targeting is still guided at the ad set level, through location, age and audience signals, but it’s hammered in at the creative level. Meta reads who an ad is for from what’s in it, so your creative sharpens everything your ad set starts.

A national low-cost ad says the same thing in every suburb. Local, varied creative gives Meta more to work with, so your club gets found first.

03 · Inside the ad

Anatomy of an ad that wins on value

Here’s what that looks like in practice. This ad for Anytime Fitness Pimpama never mentions a competitor, and it doesn’t lead with price. Every part of it has one job.

The story opener leads with local pride and ends mid-thought, so people tap “See more”. The image is the club’s own team, never stock. The headline names an advantage a budget gym can’t match: sauna and recovery. The body copy stacks value line by line. The proof line carries the offer and the scarcity. And the button says “Learn More”, because the ad’s job is to earn the click, not close the sale.

Site links take this further. On Meta they sit under the ad as swipeable cards. On Google they sit under your search ad, each kept to 25 characters. A budget gym can only sell price. Site links show five reasons you’re worth more, each with its own landing page.

04 · The words

Write like a local, not a discount store

Budget gyms fill the first lines of their ads with a price. We fill them with a story.

Headlines work the same way. “Cheap gym memberships near you” blends into every other ad in the feed. “Sauna, hot yoga & recovery tech at your local 24/7 club” stands out. So does “What 40 Pimpama locals did in their first 6 weeks”, because it’s specific, local and impossible to copy.

Our copy rules are simple. Sell value before price. Name the suburb. Lead with what they can’t match. Tell one member’s story instead of listing ten features. Keep the lines short and get specific with real names, numbers and dates. Stick to one angle per ad. And never knock the competitor. Out-value them.

05 · The look

Why local content wins

Low-cost gyms run one national ad everywhere, and that’s their weakness. Our rollouts open with real local content, then clear offer ads, then variety, rotating six formats so the feed never sees the same thing twice.

Every Digi club gets all three content types made locally: video for depth, images for volume and design for variety. One shoot gives us 50+ photos, shot for both 4:5 feed and 9:16 stories. See what that looks like in our recent shoots with Team Digi.

06 · The audience

Your creative can help you target people

Your ad set points Meta in the right direction. Your creative hammers it home. Because Andromeda reads what’s in your ad, the people in it shape who sees it. Put a busy mum in the image and “…for busy mums” in the copy, and Meta finds more busy mums. Put the Pimpama team in front of the Pimpama City sign, and Meta finds Pimpama locals.

Swap in a shift worker, someone over 50 or a first-timer, and the same offer reaches a whole new group of locals. We also feed Andromeda the right signals in the right order, so spend goes first to locals ready to join.

07 · After the click

Deliver on the promise

The ad earns the click. The landing page has to keep the promise. If your headline says “Pimpama’s New 24/7 Club, With Sauna & Recovery”, the page should say exactly that, then lead to a short enquiry form and an instant reply from a real person. That fast, human response is another edge a budget gym rarely matches.

The bottom line

Compete on value, not price

A low-cost gym opening nearby isn’t the end of your growth. It’s a reason to sharpen how you show up. Lead with creative, tell local stories, show the value they can’t match, and let price be the least interesting thing about your club.

Want to see what that looks like in practice? Read how AF Logan competed on value to become Turnaround Club of the Year, and how AF Pimpama led with local pride, not price, to generate 939 presale leads.