Do You Need to Warm Up a New Ad Account?
Today's question is about whether a brand new ad account, Facebook page, and pixel need any special treatment before running sales campaigns. Conventional wisdom says to build followers first, run awareness campaigns, or season the pixel with top-of-funnel activity. Jon explains why these recommendations are nonsense and often counterproductive, how building low-quality engagement early can poison your remarketing audiences, and why optimizing for purchases or leads from day one is the fastest path to real results.
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Question
Hey Jon, this is Mistie Crovo. I have a new Facebook page with a new Ads Manager and a new data set. My Pubcast Question is, do I need to wait a certain amount of time or do anything special first before I can start running sales campaign ads? Thank you so much.
Answer
This is a great question, Mistie, because I know how much conflicting information there is on this.
Conventional wisdom says that you should approach a new account differently than you would an established account. You have a new Facebook page that doesn’t have any followers. You have a new ad account without an established history. And you have a new pixel or dataset so Meta doesn’t have any conversion data.
I’m sure you’ve heard the various recommendations on these situations. You need to build your Facebook page or Instagram account first. Or you need to run awareness or engagement or traffic campaigns to give Meta data. Maybe you need to “season the pixel” as they say.
I personally believe all of these recommendations are nonsense, and they may even hurt you. They are solutions to perceived problems, but these solutions may create more problems as a result.
If you’re focused on building your Facebook or Instagram audience first, there are all sorts of traps you can fall into. You might end up with low-quality followers, which can send negative signals and hurt you. Or if you focus on high-quality followers, you may spend a whole bunch of money to build a vanity metric. If these people don’t actually consume your organic content, it’s a waste of time.
As for a new ad account, the most important thing you can do is start spending. You will very likely have a low daily spending limit to start. The only way you can get that limit increased is by maxing that limit out and establishing a strong history. If you stay within the rules and Meta trusts you, your limit will be increased.
And finally, the new pixel or dataset. There is no evidence that starting with top-of-funnel actions like traffic or engagement will be beneficial. And truly, this is likely to be counterproductive.
This is when Meta’s most likely to show your ads to low-quality audiences. They may have no interest whatsoever in your ad, but they’re most likely to click or engage. You don’t want that because then your history and built-in remarketing audiences will be composed of low-quality engagement.
So, look at it like this.
A new business is absolutely at a disadvantage. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t get results.
Start by optimizing for an important action, like purchases or leads. This will at least start the process of Meta trying to find the people who will perform those actions.
Know that it’s going to be more difficult in the early going and set that expectation. But Meta’s systems are smart enough to learn quickly.
So the pressure is on you to create high quality ads that appeal to your target demographic.
Low brand awareness might limit your results early, but don’t assume it will be the case.
Thanks for your question, Mistie!