Stop Wasting Money: Meta Ad Fixes for 2025

Introduction 

Imagine you have a small business and you want to increase your revenue. The first thought in your mind must be, “Let’s do marketing. We will run some ads.” Your hope may be that once you start running ads your business will grow and your revenue will also expand exponentially. But let me tell you. That is a complete misconception and there is a high probability that the ads you run will result in just waste of money and effort. In this blog let me tell you about what you should expect when running Meta Ads and how you can tackle some problems you may face so that you don’t waste your money.

The first truth you should know about marketing and Meta Ads is that Instagram ads and Facebook ads, together called Meta Ads, is just a tool to attract, educate and create interest in potential customers and not money printing machines that convert everyone you target into paying clients or promoters. Converting a potential audience into your customer, ultimately is the duty of the sales team and If you are getting leads through Marketing or ads but none of them are converting, you should seriously consider reevaluating the efficiency of your sales team and sales funnel. 

For Marketing there are techniques to bring potential customers into your business through the Marketing funnel. But if you are not playing the cards right there is a high chance, you will lose the one person who was about to become your customer. If you are expecting people to throw their money at you after seeing one creative which you used for ads then what is waiting for you in the end is utter disappointment. Let’s Explore the Meta Advertising so that you can set your expectation to a realistic scenario and not the “get rich in one ad dream”.

Understanding the customer’s journey

People do not buy a product just because they see it. Buying a product or service takes place after a person goes through a series of stages and finally makes a decision to buy it. Marketing In these stages must help the buyer make a decision by answering some of the questions, buyer may have. For example: Will this product or service solve my problem ? Is this product worth the money value it holds? Etc…. To understand how a person makes a decision, Let us understand the customer journey or What marketers call “ A MARKETING FUNNEL”. 

1. Top of the Funnel. Awareness 

The stage where people discover your brand, your product and the solution you offer to solve one or more problems they may be facing. Don’t expect results at this stage because, People are only knowing about the existence of your business at this stage. 

2. Middle of the Funnel. Consideration  

The stage where people want to know more about your business. Be on top of your game because this is the stage where people research, compare and explore about your business, your competitors, your Unique selling proposition and many more. 

3. Bottom of the Funnel. Decision 

The last stage where people want to buy from you but they need the final push like a trust signal or a good sales communication. Sometimes an extra discount or some offer might do just fine. 

Meta Adss works to create awareness and interest in people but the conversion happens later. It may be online or offline.

Understanding Meta Ads Objectives 

Meta Adss offers you different campaign objectives based on what your business wishes to achieve and each objective delivers different types of results. Let’s discuss: 

1. Awareness Objective 

Goal : Reach maximum number of people to let them know about your brand and business 

Expect: High impression, Low Engagement or conversion.

This objective is useful when you are starting out or launching a new brand or product. 

2. Engagement Objective 

Goal: Get reactions for your for page like comments, shares, saves and page follow. 

Expect : Good reach, social proof, link clicks. 

This objective is useful when are trying grow your online presence and virality.

3. Lead Generation Objective 

Goal : Get people to fill a form called lead form. It is a method for customers to let you know that they are interested in knowing more about your business. 

Expect : High lead volume with low cost, Contact info, This objective is useful when you want to know who all are interested in your business. 

This lead form can be given to the sales team to contact the customer and give sales communication. 

4. Traffic Objective 

Goal : Bring people to follow a specific link and drive traffic to your page or website or landing page 

Expect : lot of link clicks, Bounce rate. 

This objective is useful when you want to take the audience to your website. But the ad will fail if the website is slow to load, landing page message doesn’t match the ad or if there is no compelling Call To Action.

5. Sales/Conversion Objective 

Goal : Drive purchases or specific actions like registrations, checkouts, or bookings. 

Expect : Purchases, Sign ups.

This objective is useful when you want people to purchase products from your website, useful for an E-Commerce website.The Cost per conversion will be high if Pixel (a tool that connects social media pages with your website) is not trained with previously existing data. This type of ads works best when retargeting an audience section. Install your pixel properly, have a good product and attractive offer. Test out other objective before running Sales objective 

6. App Promotion 

Goal : Get people to install or interact with your game 

Expect : App downloads (tracked through google play/app store) 

This objective is useful when you want people to download and use your app. The ad might fail if the app size is too large, permissions look sketchy, app store reviews are poor or users find a better alternative. This type of ad is good for SAAS products. 

Realistic Expectations Every Business Should Have 

? You Need to Warm Up Cold Audiences

Most people who see your ad don't even know you. Expecting them to purchase immediately is unrealistic. You need to do remarketing campaigns, nurture the Emails, Put offers for your products while retargeting, Create engaging and educating content. Doing all these will create familiarity among your audience and warm them up. Cold Audience takes a lot of time to take decision 

? Not all leads will convert

There is a reason why marketing strategies are called marketing funnels. Just like a funnel, as you go down the number of people who are interested in your product will decrease just like a filter and only a few will convert to paying clients. If you get 50 leads and only 10 are converted, don’t be pessimistic; it's all part of business. 

? The ad Creatives are Everything

A good ad should have a good visual representation. A good visual should grab the attention of the audience in 3 seconds, clearly communicate the problem the product solves, include a strong call to action and Match your landing page. Use A/B testing to find what resonates with your target audience. 

Common Mistakes That Kill Your Meta Campaign 

1. Expecting Instant Sales 

People take time to make decisions. Don’t expect them to convert on the very first call. Nurture them, Make proper follow ups and educate them. 

2. Having no follow up system 

Today’s world expects business to be active 24/7. This is impossible for all but having a customer relationship management software will help people to build trust when they receive answers to their questions anytime of the day. Automating the questions and answers will build reputation among the leads. 

3. Poor visuals and content kills the ad 

The visuals play a vital role in the success of the ad. Poor visual or auditory experience in the audience creates an illusion about the reputation of your brand. Use good quality gears to achieve desired quality standards. 

4. Not testing creative variations 

If one ad creative doesn’t work, try 5 variations of the creative. Perform A/B testing to test variation of ads. Try changing your creatives, headings, Call To Actions and find what clicks among your audience.

5. Ignoring the Funnel 

People’s Psychology plays around the marketing funnel strategy. When an audience comes to the next stage of funnel but your business does not have the content to create interest, educate or drive them to the next stage of funnel, Your ad will fail. Having poor landing page, Low quality content, No email sequence may cause leads to drop out of their decision.

Retargeting – Where the Conversions Actually Happen 

Imagine if someone saw your ad, visited your website and then did nothing. Sounds disappointing right? Well actually no. If they clicked and came to your website that means they are interested in what you have to offer. What they need is more education and persuasion. This is where retargeting comes into play. 

Connecting Pixel to your website gives meta the power to show ads specifically to people who interacted with your business (visited your website, watched your video, Engaged with an instagram post, clicked your lead form but didn’t fill). Using this data we can run Retargeting ads to people who interacted with your business. 

Remember these audiences are warmer than the average user. There is a high probability that they will convert. 

What Metrics Should You Track 

Metrics are data that gives you an idea on how your ad is performing. Not all metrics are important but here are some important ones to check while running a Meta Ads. 

1. CTR (Click-Through Rate)

Measures how attractive your ad is. A low CTR means people are ignoring your ad. 

2. CPL (Cost Per Lead)

Tells you how much you're spending for each lead form filling. Lower CPL is better but don’t sacrifice quality for volume. 

3. ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) 

How much money you made with the ad vs. how much you spent on the ad. 

4. Lead to Sale Ratio

Tells if your leads are converting? If not, is it a sales issue or ad issue? 

Your Sales Funnel Must Be Ready 

Don’t launch a campaign until you have a proper sales funnel in place. It's like the saying goes “ Don’t fix your roof after it rains”. Not having an efficient sales team and sales funnel will ruin your campaign. A well planned sales funnel should have : 

? Landing page with clearly mentioned offer. Landing page should be fast and mobile friendly. 

? Thank you page which confirms the visitor that the form they filled and submitted has been received and clear message on what will happen next. (Thank you for contacting [business name]. Let’s have a chat as soon as possible) 

? A customer relationship management system to do proper follow ups and automations. 

? A retargeting ad to create familiarity with the ones who took notice to your business

Combine Meta Adss with Organic Content 

Organic content plays a vital role in supporting your ads. It helps create credibility for your business among your audience. If someone saw your ad and visited your instagram page to check about you and all they saw was a few posts and low quality videos, they would instantly lose interest in you. Organic posts are important for a business to build trust among their audience. 

To create such credibility and trust, Post 3-4 times a week. Use good quality contents, share client’s testimonial, Occasionally do livestreams and Monitor your growth continuously. Meta Ads bring people to your page and that organic content must convert that curiosity that led them to your page into trust. 

How Long Should You Run a Campaign 

One of the common mistakes businesses make is run ads for a few days and when they do not see results, they turn off the ad. What we need to understand is that Meta Ads works using Data. It requires time to gather that data, Which is commonly called the learning phase. Audience must see your ad for more than one time to atleast remember you or your business. 

Stopping the ad too soon is like quitting the gym after the first workout. Let your ad run for at least 2 weeks. Let Meta collect data about who all are most probably going to become your customer and create trust among them and create curiosity to bring them to your page and finally let the sales funnel take care of the rest. Don’t be so hasty to see results in one day. 

Final thoughts 

Is Meta Adss worth it ? Should you run ads in Meta ? Do my business need Meta Ads ? 

The answer is absolutely YES. In this modern era where more than a billion users in India are spending more than 3 hours a day on their phone scrolling in Instagram and Facebook, Your Business should reach these people unless you have a greater idea to market your business in a more cost effective way. But be realistic about the process. 

Becoming Viral overnight is a rare phenomenon and don’t expect huge returns in a single ad. Meta Ads is useful when you want to create awareness about your business among the right audience, bring in quality leads or people who are genuinely interested in your business or at least curious about it. What you need to create a successful ad campaign are Good quality visuals and copy, an irresistible offer, a responsible sales team, a retargeting plan, a lead nurturing system and realistic expectation.