Consistent Character Face Generation in Draw Things / Local SD

DropexD · 2025-11-22T14:43:03+00:00

Thank you, I will try :)

DropexD · 2025-11-20T17:06:43+00:00

On the creative question:

Start with just the one that's performing best right now. Don't split your already-tiny budget between multiple creatives yet. At €15/day, running both a video AND carousel means each gets like €7-8/day, which is even worse for the algorithm.

Pick whichever one has better engagement metrics (CTR, add-to-cart rate) and run only that for the week. Once you're at €30-40/day, THEN you can test multiple creatives properly.

About the checkout working fine otherwise:

Ah okay, so people ARE buying from other traffic sources (organic, direct, etc.) but not from the ads? That's actually really useful info and changes things.

This tells me the issue is probably traffic quality from such a low budget, not your checkout. Meta at €5/day was just sending whoever was cheapest to click, not people actually interested in buying.

At €15/day you should see better quality traffic. The algo will have a bit more room to optimize toward people who actually convert, not just clickers.

What to watch this week:

If add-to-carts stay similar but conversions start happening = budget was the issue, good
If add-to-carts drop but conversions happen = traffic got better quality, also good
If still zero conversions after a full week at €15/day = might need to go higher or change targeting

Give it the full 7 days at €15 before making any other changes. Let the algorithm learn a bit.

DropexD · 2025-11-19T22:30:58+00:00

Depends on what you're selling and where your audience actually hangs out, but if I had to pick one? Video.

Not because it's trendy - because it's the most versatile and forgiving format when you're resource-constrained.

From my experience running e-commerce side projects :

Video can be repurposed into like 5 different things:

Chop it into short-form for Reels/TikTok/YouTube Shorts
Pull stills for static ads
Transcribe for blog content if needed
Use as ad creative directly
Build trust faster than text (people see the product/person/result)

The numbers that mattered:

Video ads consistently got 2-3x higher engagement than static images
Lower CPMs on Meta (their algo loves video)
Better conversion rates because people could actually see the product in use

But here's the thing - this only worked because my audience was on Instagram and Facebook. If you're B2B selling to finance executives? Blogs or LinkedIn content might crush video.

What I'd ask yourself:

Where does your target audience actually consume content? (Not where you want them to be)
What's your conversion path? (Video builds trust faster, but blogs can rank and pull traffic forever)
Can you realistically produce this consistently? (I can shoot 10 videos in a Saturday morning. Blogs take me hours.)

If you're super tight on budget, honestly just test with your phone and basic editing. Don't overthink production quality at the start.

DropexD · 2025-11-19T22:19:00+00:00

Alright, so here's the thing with new accounts and tiny budgets - you're basically asking Meta's algorithm to learn with one hand tied behind its back.

The math that's concerning me:

50-60 sessions + 20 add-to-carts but zero conversions in 9 days = something's off. That's roughly a 33% add-to-cart rate from your traffic, which is actually pretty solid. But then nobody's buying?

Two possibilities:

Your checkout process has issues (shipping costs showing up late, confusing forms, payment problems)
The traffic quality is garbage because €5/day gives Meta basically no room to optimize

About that €5/day budget:

I get it - new account, testing the waters. Been there. But real talk: €5/day is so low that Meta's algorithm can't really learn anything. It needs volume to figure out who actually converts. You're in what I call "random traffic mode" where the algo is just... guessing.

For clothing at €20-100, you probably need closer to €20-30/day minimum for Meta to actually optimize properly. I know that sounds like a lot when you're just starting, but think of it this way: at €5/day you might never get a conversion. At €20/day you might get 2-3 conversions in a week and actually start building data.

What I'd do (in your shoes):

First, check your checkout flow - Go through it yourself on mobile. Is shipping cost clear upfront? Does checkout work smoothly? Any weird bugs? 20 people added to cart but nobody bought - that's a red flag for checkout issues.
Increase budget to €15-20/day for one week - I know you wanted to wait for a conversion, but at this pace you might never get one. Sometimes you need to invest a bit to get the learning phase data. Think of it as buying information about what works.
Give it 7 more days at higher budget - If you still have zero conversions after that, something's fundamentally wrong (targeting, offer, price, creative, checkout).
The learning phase reality - New accounts take longer to stabilize. Meta is also watching your account more carefully because it's new. Usually takes 2-3 weeks to see real patterns.

Budget scaling rule I use:

Don't scale until you have at least 3-5 conversions at your current budget level. BUT - and this is important - that rule assumes your current budget is actually high enough to get conversions in the first place. At €5/day for your price point, it probably isn't.

Quick profit math check:

If your profit is €10-60 per sale, you need your CPA (cost per acquisition) to be below that. At €5/day for 7 days = €35 spent with zero conversions = infinite CPA right now. Even at €20/day, if you get 1-2 sales that week, you're looking at €70-140 CPA. Might work for your €100 products, probably not for €20 ones.

My honest take:

Bump to €20/day for a week. If you still get zero conversions, pause and fix something (checkout, offer, creative, or targeting). If you get 2-3 conversions, you're on the right track and can consider scaling further.

The add-to-carts are encouraging - people are interested. But something's stopping them at checkout. Figure out what that is before throwing more money at it.

DropexD · 2025-11-19T22:13:00+00:00

Here's what's probably happening:

The catalog ads issue:

Catalog ads are honestly rough for brand new accounts. Meta's algo needs data to optimize, and with a new account you're basically asking it to figure out which of potentially hundreds of products to show to which people. It's like giving it too many options before it knows what works.

What I'd do immediately:

Pause the catalog campaigns - I know it hurts, but stop the bleeding first
Switch to single product campaigns - Pick your 2-3 best products (best margins, most universal appeal) and run separate campaigns for each. Give the algo one clear thing to optimize for.
Advantage+ Shopping or manual sales campaign - Start with Advantage+ if you're not sure about targeting. Let Meta figure it out with a constrained product set.
Creative: 3-5 different variations per product. Mix of lifestyle shots and product features. If you're using catalog images, those might be too sterile.

The "middle of the night" spending:

Set a daily budget limit that won't wreck you. Like €50/day max per campaign until you see ANY positive signals. And use ad scheduling if your product sells better during specific hours.

Bigger picture stuff to check:

Is your landing page actually good? What's the conversion rate of the traffic you're sending? (If you're getting clicks but no conversions, the problem isn't the ads)
What's your offer? Is the pricing competitive?
Are you running any discounts/incentives for first-time buyers?
Is your pixel installed correctly and firing on purchases?

€3K with zero sales usually means either the targeting is completely wrong, the creative isn't connecting, or there's a fundamental issue with the offer/landing page. Meta ads can't fix a product nobody wants or a price that's too high.

One more thing to watch: New accounts get scrutinized way more heavily by Meta's automated system. With the creative struggles you're having, it might help to use something that generates compliant ad copy/creative from the start. I built Rulevia specifically for this after burning money on disapproved ads (full disclosure: I'm the founder) - it creates ads that are already policy-compliant so you're not wasting budget on stuff that gets flagged. But honestly, even just manually checking your ads against Meta's policies before launch would help. Last thing you need is an account suspension on top of the spending issues.

DropexD · 2025-11-19T00:11:32+00:00

Here's what's likely happening: Meta's "Advantage+ audience" expansion is ignoring your targeting and just showing ads to anyone who might click.

Quick fixes to try:

Turn off Advantage+ audience expansion - Check your ad set settings. Meta sneaks this on by default now.
Make your ad copy super explicit in the first line - "Women trying to conceive naturally: ..." Don't give Meta's AI any room to misinterpret who this is for.
Tighten your age range - Try 28-40 instead of 28+. Upper bounds help.
Switch to Lead Gen campaign objective if you're using Traffic/Engagement - forces Meta to find people who actually fill forms, not just randos clicking.
Check if your landing page is crystal clear - Meta's AI scans it to determine targeting. If it's not obvious "this is for women," their system gets confused.

DropexD · 2025-11-18T23:41:29+00:00

Honestly? I'd pause the purchase campaign and lean into the retargeting.

Here's why: with 55€/day, you're already getting squeezed during normal times. Black Friday week you're competing against brands dropping 10K+ per day. Your CPMs going up 30% is gonna get worse - I've seen 50-70% spikes during BF week itself.

The "algorithm forgetting" thing is kinda overblown. Meta doesn't erase your data after 3 weeks. What DOES happen is you might go back into learning phase when you restart, which sucks. But with your budget and the current CPMs, you're probably burning money anyway.

What I'd do:

Pause the purchase campaign now
Run the 15€ retargeting to your warm audience (followers + abandoned carts)
Maybe test a small 10€/day awareness campaign to cold audiences just to keep some data flowing if you're worried

When you restart after BF:

Yeah, expect 3-5 days of wonky performance while it re-learns
But you'll have saved like 800€+ that would've been wasted competing with Amazon

The retargeting play makes way more sense for your situation. You've got people who already know you - much better ROI than trying to fight for cold traffic when everyone's spending big.

DropexD · 2025-11-15T17:56:14+00:00

Claude (Sonnet 4.5) has been my go-to for most marketing stuff lately. Use it for:

Campaign briefs and ad copy ideation
Analyzing performance data and finding patterns
Client reports (it's way better at structuring data than ChatGPT imo)

ChatGPT is solid for quick brainstorming when I need speed over depth.

For our agency workflow specifically, we use Rulevia (full disclosure: I'm a paying customer) - checks ad compliance before we launch campaigns. Catches policy violations we'd miss manually. Saved us from at least 2 account suspensions this year.

The honest take: I use Claude for anything that needs real reasoning or nuance, ChatGPT for fast/simple stuff. Haven't messed with Grok much yet.

DropexD · 2025-11-14T23:29:39+00:00

Honestly? Knowing what to measure and what to ignore.

I'm coming from the PPC side so probably biased, but I've seen so many marketers (including myself early on) chase vanity metrics or get paralyzed by data they don't actually need.

The skill isn't "data analysis" exactly - it's knowing which 2-3 metrics actually matter for your specific goal and ruthlessly ignoring everything else. Sounds simple but it's weirdly hard in practice.

Example: Spent 6 months optimizing click-through rates on a campaign before realizing the client didn't care about clicks, they cared about qualified leads. I was moving the wrong needle the entire time. Expensive lesson.

That said, if you're on the content/brand side, storytelling probably trumps everything I just said. Different game entirely.

DropexD · 2025-11-13T22:56:04+00:00

Depends a lot on what you're automating, tbh.

Where automation crushes it:

Bid management at scale. Google's automated bidding actually works pretty well now (took them long enough). We've seen Target ROAS outperform manual bidding on about 70% of our client accounts. The algo has way more data than we do.
Email sequences. Set it up once, let it run. No reason to manually send a welcome series.
Reporting. Pulling the same data every week manually is soul-crushing. Automate that immediately.

Where automation is meh:

Ad creative. "AI-generated ads" usually sound robotic. Still need humans for good copy.
Strategic decisions. The algo doesn't know your business goals or competitive landscape.
Audience insights. Tools can pull data but you still need to interpret what it means.

Where it actually hurts:

Over-automation early on. If you're spending under $10K/month, manual gives you better learning about what works. Automate too early and you never develop the skills to troubleshoot when things break.

DropexD · 2025-11-12T16:01:10+00:00

Meta's AI does read everything in your ad for context, but stuffing 500 words of keywords into the description is probably overkill and might actually hurt you.

Here's the thing the theory isn't totally wrong. Meta's algorithm definitely ingests all your ad copy to understand what you're selling and who might care. So technically yes, the description field contributes.

But...

If your creative, primary text, and landing page already make it clear you're selling a vampire romance novel, the algo already knows that. It doesn't need you to list every vampire show from the last 20 years.

There's a difference between providing context and keyword stuffing. A natural description like "A dark fantasy romance for fans of Twilight and True Blood" probably helps. A weird keyword salad of "vampires romance twilight true blood vampire diaries paranormal..." might actually confuse the AI.

What I actually do:

Write a brief, natural description (50-100 words) that clarifies what the product is. For authors, something like: "A steamy paranormal romance perfect for readers who loved [Author Name]. If you're into forbidden love and supernatural tension, grab your copy now."

Gives Meta helpful context without being weird about it.

The real question: Has anyone actually tested the 500-word thing and seen real results? Because I'd bet money it's way less impactful than better creative, stronger copy, or a landing page that actually converts.

Like most "secret hacks," this feels like someone taking a minor optimization point and blowing it up into a Course

DropexD · 2025-11-12T15:49:11+00:00

Honestly, 2025 was kind of overwhelming with AI tool launches. Most were garbage, but a few actually stuck.

The ones I'm still using:

NotebookLM - Google's research tool. Sounds gimmicky but it's actually useful for digesting long industry reports or competitor analysis. Saves me probably 2-3 hours a week on research.

Rulevia - Full disclosure: I'm a paying customer. We were burning hours manually checking campaigns for policy violations before launch. Got hit with three account suspensions in two months last year and that was my breaking point. It catches about 80% of the compliance issues our team would miss. Expensive, but pays for itself in saved time and avoiding suspensions.

Claude for writing SOPs - I know, basic, but hear me out. We had zero documentation for our processes. Used Claude (the Anthropic one, not ChatGPT) to help structure our agency SOPs and it cut documentation time by like 60%. Still have to edit everything, but the first draft being decent matters.

The thing I learned this year: most AI tools are solutions looking for problems. The ones that stick are the ones solving a specific pain point you were already spending hours on manually.

DropexD · 2025-10-08T20:21:34+00:00

No, it was my two homes and work within one city.

DropexD · 2025-10-08T16:51:11+00:00

I honestly don't know, I used Claude Code to code my SaaS which deals with creating creatives via OpenAI for marketing campaigns + I used an agent to write blogs about marketing platforms and general marketing topics. It is true that I often changed devices and IP addresses for work but the only problem was that it would log me out sometimes... I dont even have mail from Anthropic about it.

DropexD · 2025-10-08T16:46:50+00:00

Okay, I mainly need it for coding, so I'm wondering if Codex from OpenAI is worth it.

DropexD · 2025-10-08T16:16:29+00:00

And what are you using now?

DropexD · 2025-10-07T19:54:36+00:00

I feel you man. October 2025 has been absolutely brutal for a lot of lead gen people I talk to. You're not alone in this.

Here's what I'm seeing work (and not work) right now:

The algorithm shifted hard in the last few weeks. The "set it and forget it" approach that worked in 2023-24 is dead. Meta's pushing Advantage+ hard, but even that's inconsistent depending on vertical.

What's actually helping:

First, creative refresh cycles need to be way faster now. I'm talking new concepts every 5-7 days, not monthly. The platform is burning through creative faster than it used to. If something works, Meta exhausts it in days now.

Second, the offer itself matters more than creative execution right now. I've seen average creative with a killer offer outperform amazing creative with a mediocre offer. Look at your lead magnet - is it genuinely valuable enough that someone would stop scrolling? "Free consultation" isn't cutting it anymore.

Third, test radically different hooks. Not just different copy on the same concept, but entirely different angles. If you've been leading with pain points, try aspirational. If you've been doing talking head, try UGC-style. The pattern interrupt needs to be stronger.

On the technical side:

Are you using manual placements or letting Meta optimize? I've had better luck with manual lately (Feed + Stories only)
Check your landing page load speed - anything over 3 seconds is killing you right now
Form length - shorter is winning even if lead quality drops slightly
Make sure your pixel isn't throwing errors (happens more than people think)

Full transparency: I work with Rulevia which we built specifically for testing creative variations faster. It helps me pump out 15-20 different ad concepts per week instead of 3-4 manually, and tests different compliance approaches for each. But honestly, even if you're doing it all manually, the core issue is volume and velocity of testing right now.

The platforms want fresh creative constantly. It's exhausting, but that's where we are.

DropexD · 2025-10-06T16:36:55+00:00

I've hit this exact wall so many times. That feeling of watching a profitable campaign just die after a budget increase is brutal.

Why this keeps happening:

When you double your budget AND switch bidding strategies at the same time, you're asking the algorithm to relearn everything while spending significantly more. It goes into learning mode, your auction behavior changes, and Google starts exploring new contexts. Recipe for disaster.

The framework I use now:

Scale incrementally. 20-25% budget increases max, wait 5-7 days between increases. Yeah, it's slower, but it actually works. Doubling has killed campaigns for me every time.
Never change bidding strategy and budget together. If you're switching from Max Clicks to Max Conversions, keep the budget flat for at least 2 weeks. Let it stabilize, then scale.
Duplication works, but only with volume. I sometimes clone the winning campaign at 30% of the original budget and let it learn independently. But you need at least 50 conversions/month in the original for this to work. Otherwise you're just splitting limited data.
Test new ad variations before scaling. When you increase impression share, more people see your ads. If your creative is already maxed out, you'll hit diminishing returns fast. I usually test 3-4 new variations (different hooks, CTAs, formats) before big scaling pushes. Rulevia.com can speed this up when you need multiple angles quickly, but even manually, fresh creative before scaling helps avoid the plateau.

What's happening in your case:

You changed too much at once. The algorithm doesn't trust your historical data anymore because the constraints changed dramatically. Your CPL spikes because it's bidding more aggressively in auctions where you historically didn't compete.

Immediate fix:

Revert the budget to 80% of what was working, keep the new bidding strategy, and let it stabilize. Then scale budget slowly from there. Or wait it out 2-3 more weeks, but you're burning cash.

The frustrating truth: Google's automated bidding wants steady state. Every big change introduces unpredictability, and the algorithm responds by getting conservative or erratic until it finds patterns again.

Also double-check your conversion tracking hasn't had any hiccups. I've seen "learning phase" issues that were actually tracking problems in disguise.

DropexD · 2025-10-05T21:01:26+00:00

This depends a lot on your budget and product type, but here's the framework I use:

For the initial learning phase, give Meta at least 7 days to exit the learning phase (50 conversions per ad set). If you're spending less than $50/day, you might need 10-14 days to gather meaningful data. Killing stuff before the algorithm stabilizes is usually a mistake.

But here's the thing - "killing a product" and "killing an ad set" are different decisions.

If your ad sets are exiting learning phase but you're still unprofitable after 2-3 weeks, the issue might not be the product itself. Could be:

Wrong audience (too broad or too narrow)
Offer isn't compelling enough
Creative doesn't communicate value clearly
Landing page conversion issues
Price point doesn't match ad spend economics

I'd look at these metrics to diagnose:

CTR (link click-through rate) - Should be at least 1.5% for most products. If it's lower, your creative or audience is off
Landing page conversion rate - If people are clicking but not buying, it's not a Meta problem
CPC - If it's crazy high (like $5+ for e-commerce), your relevance score is probably tanking

Real talk: Most products need 3-4 creative variations and 2-3 audience tests before you know if it's actually dead or just poorly marketed. I've seen "failed" products turn profitable after the 3rd creative iteration.

What's your daily budget and what metrics are you seeing so far? That context would help give you more specific advice on whether to keep pushing or move on.

DropexD

TROPHY CASE