Focus on the What and Why, Not the How
Advertisers list every campaign detail when their results tank, like objectives, ad sets, targeting, placements, and creative counts, hoping the right setting will fix everything. But obsessing over the "how" of Meta advertising means ignoring what actually drives performance. Jon explains why you should focus on the "what" and "why" instead, and what questions you need to ask when troubleshooting bad results.
The most common plea for help from advertisers is structured like this: “My results tanked. I’ve tried everything.”
Then they’ll list out all the details of how their advertising is set up — number of campaigns, campaign objectives, number of ad sets per campaign, whether they’re using Advantage Plus campaign budget, performance goals, targeting, placements used, number of ads per ad set, maybe even the number of videos and images to show they’re running ads consistent with creative diversification.
They might even list out the various strategies they’ve used related to remarketing and prospecting, or campaign construction, or creative testing, or something else. All the things I’ve mentioned here represent the how of Meta advertising. If I were to ask you to describe in detail the mechanics of what you’re doing and the settings you’re using, this is what you’d say.
Now, I hope you see the problem with this. I hope there’s a blinking red light regarding what’s missing. This would suggest that the advertiser in question has yet to get good results because they haven’t used the right settings — even though they’ve tried everything. But there must be a setting or secret strategy that they’re missing that will fix their results.
It’s not that the strategies and settings and mechanics that represent the how of advertising don’t matter at all. But there’s no strategy that will guarantee results. And truthfully, you can make your results worse by overcomplicating things. If you create too many campaigns and ad sets, you’ll water down your budget. If you restrict the algorithm unnecessarily, you’ll drive up costs.
That’s why I recommend a simplified approach to begin with. When advertisers obsess over the how, it suggests that nothing else could possibly be wrong — and that’s the problem here.
The reality is that the easiest explanation for bad results has nothing at all to do with how they set up their campaign. Start with the what.
And the funny thing is that these are the things that nearly every advertiser avoids talking about when discussing results. What are you promoting? What is the product? What is the price? What is the offer? What images and videos are you using? What is the customer persona that you’re going after? What are their pain points? What is the messaging strategy that you’re using? What’s the landing page? Let me see it. Show me these things.
These are the foundational elements that impact performance most. It doesn’t matter what strategy you use — if you have a flawed product or offer or set of ads or landing page, no campaign construction or strategy will ever fix it. And the truth is that no matter how good your ads and landing page are, they can always be improved.
So when you’re not getting good results and you’re frustrated, the healthy approach is to start with the what.
Now, let’s say that you were getting good results and then they reversed. Resist the urge to go back to the how. You could go straight to what you’re promoting — the what — but otherwise, focus on the why.
Why aren’t people acting on this ad? Why is Meta reporting fewer conversions? Why am I getting low-quality leads? Why am I getting lots of view-through conversions? Why are costs higher now than they were two weeks ago?
Take a curious approach that puts you in problem-solving mode. Avoid all the conspiracy theories from crazy people on the internet.
When you approach this by asking why, you do two things. First, you acknowledge that your ads aren’t perfect, and maybe there’s something you can do differently. And second, while Meta isn’t perfect, it’s also explainable. Instead of blaming Meta without any clear focus, you understand how Meta’s systems work. You know where the weaknesses are, and you use that foundation of knowledge to help troubleshoot and find the problem.
When you ask the question why in this way, you’re on the path to finding a solution. When you focus on how, you’re only spinning your wheels. You’re hoping that some magical strategy is going to save your flawed product or ads, and that just isn’t going to happen.
Here’s the bottom of the glass: One of the advantages of taking a simplified approach to campaign construction is that you can focus on what matters. You know that no magical strategy will save you, so you keep it as simple as possible.
Your bad results aren’t due to targeting or placements or the number of ad sets or the number of ads. It’s the substance within those ads.
So resist the urge to try another strategy and focus instead on all the things that represent the what of advertising. And when you need to ask questions to explain your results, focus on the why to troubleshoot. Make sure your foundation is on how Meta actually works — not the latest conspiracy theory.