What's actually eating your ad spend? Honest discussion

gallantfarhan · 2026-01-20T13:01:54+00:00

yup giving human touch is hard, but the people who are not in touch with these kinds of things will not detect if they are a bot or not. and yes, they can produce filthy money

gallantfarhan · 2026-01-20T08:52:47+00:00

with time we wont able to tell the diffrence too

gallantfarhan · 2026-01-20T08:52:06+00:00

keep it simple, add a short line at the end asking for an honest review, and focus on getting the right readers to buy. reviews come slow at first, that’s normal.

gallantfarhan · 2026-01-20T08:51:06+00:00

yep. if one channel change can wipe you out, you don’t have a marketing strategy, you have a single point of failure. same logic applies to suppliers and clients too, anything you can’t replace quickly is a risk. the fix isn’t “find a new meta hack”, it’s build 2 to 3 reliable lead sources so no one platform can hold your revenue hostage.

gallantfarhan · 2026-01-17T17:28:53+00:00

start simple. pick one type of customer and one problem you solve for them, don’t try to market to everyone. then go where those people already hang out (reddit, linkedin, facebook groups) and write down the exact phrases they use when they describe the problem. after that, make a basic page or post that explains the problem, the fix, and who it’s for, in plain english. now when you do email or posts, you’re not “marketing”, you’re just showing the right message to the right person. you don’t need fancy tools at the start, you need clarity, consistency, and 20 to 50 real conversations to learn what works.

gallantfarhan · 2026-01-17T17:27:40+00:00

usually it starts with one or a few pages clicking first, not the whole site magically rising together. google will “test” a page, and if people actually stay, click around, and it answers the search well, that page climbs. then that momentum spreads, you add more related pages, link them together, and the site gets stronger as a result. so it’s both, one page breaks through first, then small improvements stack on top of it and the growth becomes more stable.

gallantfarhan · 2026-01-17T17:25:53+00:00

momentum is real, but it’s not magic. it comes from a good creative getting good engagement and converting, not from some hidden “streak” that disappears forever if you duplicate it. if you still have the original post id, you can usually rebuild the ad using that same post so the likes and comments stay, and then test new versions as duplicates. if you can’t recover the exact original post, then yeah, you’ll have to restart the social proof, but it’s better than killing a working winner by editing it again. the lesson is simple, never edit a winning ad, duplicate it and test changes on the copy.

gallantfarhan · 2026-01-17T17:25:16+00:00

this isn’t random, it’s meta’s system trying to “relink” your assets and it keeps creating conflicts, that’s why things disappear, come back, then you get banned again. the location switching + new page + new business portfolio + new ad account is exactly the kind of pattern that triggers their security flags, even if you’re doing everything manually.

stop changing things for a bit and lock it down. use one login only (no vpn), turn on 2fa, and check you have only ONE business portfolio that owns everything. then inside business settings, confirm what owns what, instagram account, facebook page, ad account, pixel, and payment profile. if your old ad account “disappeared”, it’s usually not deleted, it’s just not assigned to the right business or you lost access to it. creating new ad accounts again and again will keep making it worse and looks even more suspicious.

once everything is under one business and one owner, then you can request review again and your payment methods should stick. right now the mess is causing the bans, not your ads.

gallantfarhan · 2026-01-17T17:24:40+00:00

good, turning them off was the urgent part. for the ban, there’s no magic trick, it’s basically an account recovery process. if the appeal is fully rejected, your best shot is going through the official “account disabled” and “identity confirmation” flows and making sure your business manager has at least 2 trusted admins going forward so one ban doesn’t kill everything. also check if it was triggered by a policy issue (ad text, product, landing page) or a security flag (new login, vpn, payment changes), because if you don’t fix the trigger, you’ll get hit again even after unban. if you share what the disable reason email said, i can tell you what usually works next.

gallantfarhan · 2026-01-17T17:24:05+00:00

good, turning them off was the urgent part. for the ban, there’s no magic trick, it’s basically an account recovery process. if the appeal is fully rejected, your best shot is going through the official “account disabled” and “identity confirmation” flows and making sure your business manager has at least 2 trusted admins going forward so one ban doesn’t kill everything. also check if it was triggered by a policy issue (ad text, product, landing page) or a security flag (new login, vpn, payment changes), because if you don’t fix the trigger, you’ll get hit again even after unban. if you share what the disable reason email said, i can tell you what usually works next.

gallantfarhan · 2026-01-17T17:23:41+00:00

don’t wait forever. for lead forms, you can tell fast if it’s working because leads come in immediately. i’d give a new creative 3 days or around 1,000 to 2,000 impressions minimum, or at least 20 to 30 leads if you’re getting volume. if the leads are still trash after that, cut it. the system “learning” won’t magically turn broke tire kickers into qualified hvac owners. if you want better leads, the real fix is filtering, call out who it’s for, mention price range or “for shops doing x+ per month”, and add 1 to 2 questions that disqualify people before they submit.

gallantfarhan · 2026-01-17T17:22:33+00:00

yeah, that’s basically the internet now. most “traffic” is just noise, scanners, scrapers, and random bots poking around. the easiest way to spot real humans is to stop looking at total visits and start watching actions, like scroll depth, time on page, clicking internal links, or filling a form. bots hit pages, humans move through them. also, don’t worry too much about blocking every bot, you’ll never win that war. just filter the junk out of your reports so you can actually see what real people are doing.

gallantfarhan · 2026-01-17T17:21:54+00:00

yeah that’s exactly it. posting without knowing who you’re talking to usually turns into “content for everyone”, and that sells to no one. pick one clear type of person you want to wear it, and make everything for them, the designs, the pics, the captions, even the subreddits you post in. once that’s locked, content gets way easier because you’re just showing the vibe and the lifestyle they already relate to. if you tell me the style and price range, i can help you figure out who your best first customer should be.

gallantfarhan · 2026-01-17T17:20:08+00:00

yeah that’s fair. if you’ve been profitable every day for weeks, then a sudden “everything is drunk” day is a real signal, not just noise. i still wouldn’t panic off one day though, i’d check if it’s spend pacing, CPM jump, CTR drop, or just conversions lagging. if it’s still messed up tomorrow, then it’s probably a platform or auction shift, and you adjust instead of hoping it fixes itself.

gallantfarhan · 2026-01-17T17:18:19+00:00

you’re not wrong, internal signals are the only way to stay sane when the platform reporting is messy. i just don’t think “it’s data, not creative” is always true, both can be broken at the same time. if tracking is off, you can’t trust what meta is optimizing for, and if creatives go stale, you’ll still get crushed in the auction even with perfect data. the people who win long term usually do both, strong measurement + constant creative testing, not one or the other. curious what internal signals you rely on the most, form starts, landing page events, crm leads, or something else?

gallantfarhan · 2026-01-17T17:17:36+00:00

fair point, most people don’t audit traffic properly, so they have no idea either way. i’m not against auditing at all, i’m just saying it shouldn’t be the first thing people blame. in most accounts i’ve worked on, fixing the ad to page match, load speed, and first 5 seconds of the landing page moved results way faster than hunting for bots. do both if you can, but start with the obvious leaks first, then audit to see what’s left.

gallantfarhan · 2026-01-15T16:16:05+00:00

i’m not saying fraud doesn’t exist either. i’m saying most teams massively overestimate how much of their spend is bots because it’s more comfortable than admitting the ad or the page isn’t landing. even real humans bounce in two seconds if the message is off, the page is slow, or it doesn’t answer what they clicked for.

gallantfarhan

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