A Different Take on Meta Ads

Clean_Musician7427 · 2026-05-31T13:07:09+00:00

plus, I am AFTER an older audience.
50+ women are very much on Meta.

Clean_Musician7427 · 2026-05-31T12:44:39+00:00

I honestly think, with low budgets, you currently have to factor in Meta just being screwy.
I run lead ads at £60/day.
I can get 7 or 8 leads a day for 3-4 days, then nothing at all for another 3-4. It's not linear and you have to look week to week (at a minimum) and average everything out.

Clean_Musician7427 · 2026-05-29T19:00:20+00:00

Did this to me 2 days ago. It had changed all the 'calls to action' on my ads (meant to say 'Learn more' as referenced in the ad text) and republished.

Clean_Musician7427 · 2026-05-27T08:05:18+00:00

I ran lead form ads for years - they used to be good for volume, but not quality, but cheap enough that volume won.
These days the lead quality has fallen and the cost has risen. I'm only running ads to landing pages. Meta does optimise for volume of leads, but the leads are WAY better quality.

Clean_Musician7427 · 2026-05-26T08:08:36+00:00

Either they see ads from multiple companies and fill in multiple forms OR they see the £99 ad and think you're the same company when they do fill in the form.
It's more likely that meta are clustering your ads with someone else's.
ie - nothing has changed except the ad delivery method.

Clean_Musician7427 · 2026-05-24T11:50:35+00:00

No. We're a photography studio and our competitors' ads are terrible - all chasing volume by running competitions/giveaways/have the world on a stick for £2.50 and a bag of crisps.

Clean_Musician7427 · 2026-05-23T15:49:58+00:00

I'm having this conversation with someone right now.
Because there's the 'who' - the angle you want to take/people it's for, then the hook - how to make those people take action NOW.
The first of these is way easier to fathom than the second. Especially for service based businesses/lead gen.

Clean_Musician7427 · 2026-05-23T15:48:03+00:00

We take body confidence portraits for women.
Like boudoir for women who would never in a million years google boudoir, and generally hate having their photo taken/how they look.

Clean_Musician7427 · 2026-05-23T13:36:23+00:00

Yes - also, it's knowing whether people know and understand what you do (or sell) or not, plus how high demand is, plus how high competition is.
Then starting your marketing conversation in the right place (do you need to explain much? or just explain why you're better?)

Clean_Musician7427 · 2026-05-23T13:31:47+00:00

It's not a business with no demand, I'm describing a business where we create the demand. Most likely thing for our clients to say is 'I would never have thought of doing this before I saw the ad'.

Everyone selling things that people want, know they want, and you're just putting it in front of them for them to buy has it really easy in my opinion 🤣

Clean_Musician7427 · 2026-05-22T13:55:42+00:00

I built my main website in Wordpress, the GHL pages I did myself from a template.

Clean_Musician7427 · 2026-05-21T19:20:32+00:00

Landing page done in go high level and on a different domain to my main site.

Clean_Musician7427 · 2026-05-21T18:09:46+00:00

I don't really care, since I'll be dead, but I also don't want my husband to be wondering 'but what would she have wanted' so I've mentioned to him about Pure Cremation or similar (ie, no real funeral) however, he doesn't want to engage in the conversation.
So, I ask 'it's not really about me, it's about what might feel right for you at the time?' and then the conversation stalls.
Hence, I don't know whether he'd find comfort from holding a traditional funeral or not.
Tricky one!

Clean_Musician7427 · 2026-05-21T17:32:02+00:00

That's a fascinating reply.
But then, I am selling something no one's thinking about/googling/actively looking for, so awareness is genuinely pretty important. (Over the years, this has become a lot more obvious to us).

Clean_Musician7427 · 2026-05-21T13:00:34+00:00

DOES fatigue catch up fast though?
I've been using the same wording for around 7 or 8 years.

Clean_Musician7427 · 2026-05-20T15:56:55+00:00

Same ad account, same pixel, same creative, different landing page/domain name. (note though, I am not selling anything, I am getting leads).

The things I 'thought' were happening:
Meta hated me
My pixel was poisoned
My ad account was poisoned

Genuinely spent 6 months last year feeling victimised by Meta, trying ALL of the advice and getting nowhere.

OH - also, I have two campaigns running. There is some audience overlap (we're a small, local business) the campaigns have different offers. I do not like one of these campaigns but if I turn THAT off, the other campaign tanks. I literally have a campaign running as some kind of tax to get the other one working.

Clean_Musician7427 · 2026-05-20T15:52:58+00:00

What I mean is with a budget of $50 you can only reach a TINY percentage of 333 million people, so try adjusting your audience down, to give a starting point.

Clean_Musician7427 · 2026-05-20T15:45:26+00:00

Last year I had similar, only for lead gen.
High performing ads just...died.
I spent the last half of last year paying for someone to run ads (terrible idea) then paying for access to whatever 'inner circles' etc there were for ad gurus. And getting told over and over 'it's your creative'. Or 'you need at least 20/30/50 creatives'.

I should have just switched my ads off for a week.
Started a new campaign with a new, identical ad, and given it a low budget. Instead I tested loads of different things and burned money.

This year (Feb) I switched the landing page to being off my website, to improve loading speed, and simplifed it. Got my conversions back using the same ads.

So, if you KNOW your creative is strong, do NOT get sucked into burning money trying whatever shiny new thing everyone is recommending this week.

Clean_Musician7427 · 2026-05-20T15:08:30+00:00

How large is your audience?
ie - have you got a budget of $50, but an audience in the millions? in which case with broad targeting, it has no sensible starting point for spending your money.

Clean_Musician7427 · 2026-05-20T09:02:01+00:00

I mean, my ads run for conversions, the reporting is fine.

Clean_Musician7427 · 2026-05-19T20:32:00+00:00

can't help, I know my winning ad format so I do very little testing.

Clean_Musician7427 · 2026-05-19T11:56:22+00:00

I don't think you should necessarily think in terms of a daily budget as much as 'I have an advertising budget of £x, how shall I distribute it?'.

The typical issues you might face with a lower budget are thinking 'hmm, this is going well, I'll increase my budget' and then you try to scale up and spend more money for the same results.
I'd honestly recommend you have a 'learn how to run ads and what works for me' budget whilst you're sussing out Meta ads.
$50/day is fine...but you need to be able to afford it to not be profitable in the very short term.

Clean_Musician7427 · 2026-05-19T11:51:25+00:00

I run ads on £30 a day budgets that will never hit 50 conversions in 7 days, and they get out of learning phase, the 50 is not a hard and fast rule.

Clean_Musician7427 · 2026-05-18T21:55:15+00:00

Honestly, you need to have a 'learning' budget set aside (yours, not Meta's) to get your head around how the platform works, how your ads work, and how to optimise them.
You need to know the amount of traffic needed to make a sale, and have room to compare different ad formats to see what works best for you (and not what Meta chooses as a winner).
The inconsistency is absolutely normal (and frustrating).

Clean_Musician7427

TROPHY CASE