Anyone can learn to set up a Meta campaign in an afternoon. Getting a Meta campaign to be profitable is a different trade. The difference lies in four things your team needs to master, and none of them are in the Ads Manager.<\/p>\n
That is immediately the problem with most training courses on advertising on Facebook and Instagram: they cover the easiest part in the most detail.<\/p>\n
Meta is the channel that can serve the entire customer journey. Prospecting with video to a cold audience, retargeting with proof to people who have already responded, and customer lists for repeat purchases. The same ad manager, three completely different roles.<\/p>\n
That is where it goes wrong most often. A campaign intended to create demand is judged by the metric of a campaign that harvests existing demand. The conclusion is then that the channel does not work, whereas the campaign was doing precisely what it was supposed to do.<\/p>\n
What your team must be able to do: state in advance for each campaign which role it fulfils and by which metric it will be judged. If that is not in writing before the campaign goes live, it will end up being judged by the wrong measure afterwards anyway.<\/p>\n
In our accounts, a click on Meta costs anywhere between a few pennies and 10 euros. That is a huge spread, and it doesn't come from the ad, but from the objective you set.<\/p>\n
If you optimise for engagement, Meta targets people who click easily and a click is dirt cheap. If you optimise for conversion, the algorithm looks for people who actually take action, and you pay considerably more per click. That second click is also worth more, but you only see that if you put the right two figures next to each other.<\/p>\n
What your team needs to be able to do: never compare the cost-per-click of an engagement campaign with that of a conversion campaign, and know when to deploy which.<\/p>\n
What we encounter with almost every new client: conversions are indeed taking place, but they are not being measured. Either they are attributed to an undefined channel, or everything ends up in direct traffic.<\/p>\n
The consequence is doubly annoying. You end up driving based on incorrect figures, and the algorithm receives incorrect signals in return. Meta then optimises hard, only in the wrong direction, and that costs you precisely as much as you put into it.<\/p>\n
What your team needs to be able to do: check whether a conversion actually arrives in the platform, and understand why Google Analytics and Meta almost never show the same figure. Measurement has become more difficult in recent years due to privacy regulations and consent requirements. That is no reason to give up, but rather a reason to modernise the setup with server-side measurement and offline conversions.<\/p>\n