Episodes

Today's question is about whether to exclude existing customers from your ads when you want to acquire new ones, and how to do it. Meta retargets existing customers by default, which isn't automatically a problem because thos...

Advertisers love to blame Meta when results tank, pointing to outages, Advantage+ enhancements, and automated settings as proof the platform is out to get them. There's a little truth in every complaint, which is exactly why ...

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 seas...

Agencies that hide ad accounts from clients claim their campaign setup is proprietary, but modern best practices mean minimal campaigns and simplified structures that aren't worth hiding. The real value an advertiser brings i...

Today's question is about whether a niche B2B audience can be too small for Meta ads to work effectively. Any business with a large enough real-world market to be profitable has an audience on Facebook and Instagram, so the i...

Advertisers assume ads with thousands of comments and reactions perform better due to social proof, and fear making edits that would erase that engagement. But Jon duplicated an ad with 6,000 comments and the new version star...

Today's question is about CPM being double in the US versus the UK and whether that means you should allocate double the budget. CPM varies by country due to competition, but higher CPM doesn't automatically mean worse perfor...

Meta provides no transparency about which specific images or videos perform best when using flexible format, related media, or AI generated creative. Breakdowns exist but share almost no useful detail. Jon explains why this l...

Today's question is about advertising expensive products with long buying cycles that fall outside the seven or 28 day attribution window. Should you run traffic campaigns instead of purchase campaigns if most conversions won...

Advertisers claim Meta steals credit for conversions that were actually driven by email or Google, calling conversion reporting vanity metrics. But attribution is messy and trying to assign single-source credit misses the poi...

Today's question is about the single most common point of confusion Jon wishes everyone understood about Meta ads. He can't pick just one, so he gives three. Jon explains why the algorithm being literal shapes everything, why...

Meta changed how click attribution works, and it's mostly for the better, but some advertisers might see a negative impact. Click-through conversions now require an actual link click, while social clicks and other engagement ...

Today's question is whether to launch a brand new campaign with creative testing or start testing later with new creatives. There's no absolute right answer, but Jon has a preferred approach with clear reasoning behind it. He...

Ads that were working fine suddenly tank, and advertisers assume Meta changed who they're showing ads to or messed up delivery. But there's usually a simpler explanation. Jon breaks down the five real causes of sudden perform...

Today's question is about using manual bidding like cost caps to control costs while scaling budget when campaigns perform well. By default, Meta tries to get the most results while spending your entire budget, which means a ...

Most advertisers obsess over targeting inputs that either do nothing or actively hurt results. Jon explains why he ignores audience suggestions, age restrictions, detailed targeting, and lookalikes entirely, how he uses value...

Today's question is about testing different customer personas using the creative testing tool. Advertisers used to create separate ad sets for each persona with adjusted targeting, but that's outdated now. Jon explains why al...

Audience suggestions cause confusion because advertisers think they're tight constraints when they're not. Jon proposes how Meta could eliminate suggestions entirely while keeping audience controls like location and exclusion...

Today's question is about determining what works from top performing ads to inform the next batch of creative. Creative testing used to isolate single elements, but now ads generate thousands of combinations through text opti...

Advertisers believe something works and only pay attention to evidence supporting it while ignoring contradictions. They blame Andromeda or the algorithm when strategies stop working instead of questioning their assumptions. ...

Today's question is about preventing customers from purchasing the same audiobook bundle twice through ads. Excluding customers is a balance of risks versus benefits, and no single custom audience catches everyone. Jon explai...

Audience suggestions feel like control, but Meta ignores them constantly, especially for age and gender. There's no proof they impact detailed targeting or lookalikes, yet they cause confusion and wasted effort creating multi...

Today's question is whether you should remove email signup popups from landing pages when sending paid Meta traffic to them. Popups don't technically violate Meta's rules, but they can contribute to bad post-click experiences...

Advertisers have a tendency to overcomplicate their campaigns with multiple ad sets, restricted targeting, removed placements, and turned-off enhancements, often without clear reasons for these decisions. Jon challenges you t...